DR DAVY ON THE ALBINO. 009 
The distinctive quality of the Albino, at least in the highest degree, appears to 
depend on the absence of the pigmentum nigrum, and of its analogue in the skin, 
the rete mucosum (using the term conventionally), and of a like secreting structure, 
it may be inferred, in the bulbs of the hair. Now these, we know, exist greatly 
varied in different peoples, and even in different individuals of the same family. 
In those in whom the 7e¢e mucoswm is least developed, the less we find their skin to 
be darkened by exposure to the sun’s rays, and the fairer they remain, even within 
the tropics, and from generation to generation, as is witnessed in the whites of 
Barbadoes and of the other West Indian Islands longest settled. On the contrary, 
where there is a well developed rete mucosum, the action of the sun’s rays is found 
to have a well-marked darkening effect. A gradation, feeble indeed, was noticeable 
in the skin of the Albinos I have described, and in one of them, the least colour- 
less, a tendency to sunburn was mentioned. Taking into account this grada- 
tion, and this effect of the sun’s rays, the speculation of the Singalese respecting 
the origin of the white races of men is not without the semblance of probability ; 
and the more so, if we admit what seems to be proved by all experience, that the 
coloured races are best adapted for warm climates, and that in the most unwhole- 
some of these climates, they have a better chance of escaping disease and a pre- 
mature death, and thereby extinction of race, than the whites. 
LesketH How, AMBLESIDE, 
February 3, 1861. 
