246 
Note on Internal Albinism 
The disappearance of superficial pigment is one of the marks of senility, it 
affects the eyes and hair alike. Is it possible that this loss of superficial pigment 
can ever be accompanied by a loss of internal pigment ? For example, possibly in 
the case of the brain centres ? Senile imbecility and in its milder form mere 
senility might possibly be associated with a Aveakening of the intensity of pig- 
mentation in certain of the brain centres. The bigger question now arises : Is it 
conceivable that any forms of imbecility, not all, but any, are associated with 
defective brain pigmentation ? This opens up an exceedingly interesting inquiry 
for those who are able to examine the brains of imbeciles and the senile insane 
— what, if any, differentiation is there in the centres of brain pigmentation*? 
Ophthalmoscopic investigation shows a high percentage of incomplete albinism 
of the eye among the insane. 
The Japanese mouse is usually a piebald with completely albinotic eyes, it 
possesses the singular habit of dancing, or better of spinning. This has been 
attributed to various causes. Is it wholly and absolutely certain that the spinning 
characteristic of this mouse may not also be associated with its partial albinism ? 
A special type of human imbecile is the spinning idiot, who rotates like a top. 
Fawn or red pigmentation occurs in close association with many types of 
albinism. Some types of red hair are, we have just found, wholly lacking in 
pigment granules. I have some reason for believing that a larger proportion of 
red hair will be found among congenital deaf-mutes than in the general population ; 
it will in a forthcoming memoir on albinism by Messrs Nettleship, Usher and 
myself be shown to be much in excess in albinotic stocks. Examining albinotic 
stocks there appears, partly in the albinotic and partly in the non-albinotic members 
to be an excessive proportion of imbecility, idiocy and deaf-mutism f. It may well 
be that these associated defects are only stigmata of general degeneracy, but the 
possibility of their having some relation to absence of internal pigment is, I venture 
to think, worth bearing in mind. So much for the suggestions I wish to make ; 
they at least suggest observations which can be made by those so fortunate as to 
be able to examine histologically cases of albinism, imbecility and deaf-mutism. 
They may be quite illusory but even an erroneous suggestion is often a useful 
guide in directing observation to unregarded points, and the authors of the above- 
mentioned memoir on albinism have sought in vain for any report on possible 
differentiation in the internal pigment of albinos — it does not appear to have been 
dealt with. 
In the account which I give below of a third autopsy on an albino, the subject 
was a boy, who combined deaf-mutism and spinning idiocy with albinism. Any 
two of these characters would on the theory of probability be an extraordinarily 
rare chance combination, but the existence of all three seems almost to demonstrate 
some interrelation in pathological origin. This deaf-mute spinning albino was the 
son of a deaf-mute mother. Dr Alfred Miller, the Medical Superintendent of the 
* Dr G. E. L. Keyes, I am glad to say, has this investigation in hand, 
t Actual statistics will be given in the memoir referred to above. 
