48 
En (III illation of an Albiiiotic Eye 
the posterior part of the eye. In a five-months' Malay-Tamil foetus pigment was 
present in the choroid at the posterior part of the eye (Fig. 1) when no pigment could 
be detected in the iris stroma. At the same region of the choroid, pigment was 
present in a seven-months' Cantonese foetus, whilst in the iris it was only with the 
aid of an oil immersion lens that a few chromatophores containing faint brown 
granules could be found. In a seven-months' Tamil foetus, the choroid contained round 
brown pigment granules in the bodies and processes of the chromatophores (Fig. 2). 
At birth there is much pigment in the iris stroma (Fig. 3) and choroid of these 
dark-raced eyes, but it falls far short of what obtains in the adult Tamil (Figs. 4 
and 5), Chinese, and some other dark-race eyes. Therefore, there is increase of 
pigment in these structures after bii'th. In view of these observations and from 
what is known of the distribution of ocular pigment in albinotic lower animals, 
it is conceivable that a human albinotic eye with scantj' pigmentation may yet 
be foTUid in which the pigment is limited to the macular region and located in 
the retinal hexagonal cells and the choroidal cells, or else confined to either the 
one or the other of these structures. No case has so far been published of a 
human eyeball containing pigment in the choroid with entire absence of pigment 
in the hexagonal cells of the retina, though such a condition we have found in 
the Avian eye — that of a hedge sparrow {Accentor modularis). In the iris of man 
clinical examination, in a few cases, has shown that pigment may be absent from 
the epiblastic layers whilst present in the stroma (17), though a microscopical 
examination is still required in such cases to determine whether the pigment is 
completely absent from the p(jsterior layers. It is probable, as Adler and Mcintosh 
suggest in their case, that had she lived, this infant of ten weeks would have 
remained a complete albino. In normal European infants, however, the iris, 
stroma and choroid contain little if ai\y pigment at birth*, and for some months 
afterwards (18). 
The following are the notes of the case before us : 
Alexina H., female, age 17, native of Banffshire, admitted to the Aberdeen 
Royal Infirjnary on November 15th, 1918, under the care of Professor A. W. 
Mackintosh, to whom I am indebted for the particulars of her illness. Since 
the age of 12 she has been subject to epileptic fits^f. In February 1918 she 
had rheumatic fever, and since that time has never been strong. The diagnosis 
* Rieke (4) states that the earliest deposition of pigment in the human choroid is in the seventh 
month of foetal life, but that this is by no means the case in all individuals as there is great variation. 
Schreiber and Schneider (8) found no trace of pigment in the stroma cells of the uvea in a thirty- 
three weeks' foetus. 
Lauber (9) examined the eyes of human embryos, and found that stroma pigment was completely 
absent in the eighth month. In an early-born foetus of the ninth month a pigmentation of the stroma 
cells of the iris could be made out, whilst the choroid was still completely pigmeutless. 
Treacher Collins and Mayou (12) give the seventh month as the average time at which pigment first 
makes its appearance in the branched cells of the choroid. The pigmentation of the stroma cells of 
the iris, they state, does not commence until after birth. 
V. Szily (13) says that the pigment of mesodermal origin appears in man shortly before birth or 
even later, and that it is fully developed during the first year. 
t She also had fits in infancy. 
