Volume X 
NOVEMBER, 1914 
NOS. 2 AND 3 
A PIEBALD FAMILY. 
By E. a. COCKAYNE, M.D., M.R.C.P. 
In spite of the great interest, which they have always excited, well 
authenticated examples of piebalds in the dark races have been found to be rare. 
In the white races they are much less conspicuous, in part owing to the presence 
of clothing and in part owing to the lack of contrast between the pigmented 
and unpigmented skin, but the likelihood of their coming under the notice of 
a skilled observer is much greater. The scarcity of records shows that piebalds 
in the white races also must be very uncommon. Last year I met with a case 
in a baby, and found that the child belonged to a family, many of whose members 
showed a similar defect of pigmentation. The family, belonging to a farming 
stock, originally came from the neighbourhood of Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, and 
the anomaly is known to have descended directly through six generations. The 
oldest member, with whom I have talked, is fairly certain that it was present in 
one generation at least before this. 
Of the first two generations in the pedigree (see Plate XI), I could obtain no 
definite information except the statement as to the existence of the piebaldism in 
I. 1 and II. 1, but of the third. III. 2 is said to have had a frontal blaze of white 
hair and white skin on the neck and forearms, which was very conspicuous owing 
to its marked contrast with the neighbouring weather-stained normal skin. 
III. 4 appears to have been the only member of the family who showed a 
marked dislike to the condition and always wore a wig to hide the frontal blaze. 
Ill, 2, whose family name was C *, had fifteen children. The first, IV. 2, 
a male, with dark hair, married twice, and had eight normal children, five by the 
first wife and three by the second. The second child, IV. 5, was a piebald, with a 
large frontal blaze, white skin on the front of the neck and arms, and blue eyes. 
He transmitted the condition to all his three children. V. 3, the eldest boy, 
aged 22 and unmarried, possesses dark hair, with a V-shaped frontal blaze of 
white or cream coloured hair, the apex of the V commencing near the coronal 
suture and spreading out to a width of 3^ inches, as it reaches the forehead. The 
eyebrows and some of the eyelashes are white. The next boy, V. 4, is aged 18. 
He has light hair and a very large blaze of unpigmented hair, which covers the 
whole of the top of the head. His eyebrows and eyelashes are white, and the eyes 
are blue. Both boys have white patches on the front of tlie neck antl on the arms 
(see Plate XII). 
* Names preserved in the confidential register of the Galtou Laboratory. 
Biometrika x 26 
