ALBINOS. ' 
113 
selves a more extraordinary appearance. But those who, like me, 
have seen them in their infancy, before they were tutored to this deceit, 
and when too few people came to Chamouni to make their affectation pro- 
fitable to them, can attest that then they were not much offended with 
the light of day. At that time they were so little desirous of exciting 
the curiosity of strangers, that they hid themselves to avoid such, and 
it was necessary to do a sort of violence to them, before they could 
be prevailed upon to allow themselves to be inspected. It is also 
well known at Chamouni, that when they were of a proper age^ they 
were unable to tend the cattle like the other children at the same 
age, and that one of their uncles maintained them out of charity, at 
a time of life w'hen they were capable of gaining a subsistence by 
their labour. I am therefore of opinion that we may consider these 
two lads as true Albinos, for if they had not the thick lips and flat 
noses of the white negroes, it is because they are Albinos of Europe, 
not of Africa. This infirmity affects the eyes, the complexion, and 
the colour of the hair; it even diminishes the strength, but*does not 
alter the conformation of the features. Besides, there are certainly 
in this malady various degrees ; some may have less strength, and be 
less able to endure the light, but these circumstances in those of Cha- 
mouni are marked with characters sufficiently strong to entitle them 
to the unhappy advantage of being classed with that variety of the 
human species denominated Albinos. 
“ When nature,” continues this author, “ presents the same appear- 
ance often, and with circumstances varied, we may at last discover 
some general law, or some relation which that appearance has with 
known causes ; but when a fact is so singular and so rare as that of 
those Albinos, it gives but little scope to conjectures, and it is very 
difficult to verify those by which we at first attempt to explain it. I 
at first imagined that this disease might be referred to a particular 
sort of organic debility ; that a relaxation of the lymphatic vessels 
within the eye might suffer the globules of the blood to enter too 
abundantly into the iris, the uvea, and even into the retina, which 
might occasion the redness of the iris and of the pupil. The same 
debility seemed also to account for the intolerance of the light, and 
for the whiteness of the hair. But a learned physiologist, Mr. Blu- 
menbach, professor in the university at Gottingen, who has made 
many profound observations on the organs of sight, and has considered 
with great attention the Albinos of Chamouni, attributes their infirmity 
to a different cause. The study of comparative anatony has furnished 
him with frequent opportunities of observing this phenomenon; he 
has found it in birds, in white dogs, and in owls ; he says it is gene- 
rally to be seen in the warm-blooded animals, but that he has never 
met with it in those with cold blood. From his observations, he is of 
opinion that the redness of the iris, and of the other internal parts 
of the eye, as well as the extreme sensibility that accompanies this 
redness, is owing to the total privation of that brown or blackish 
mucus, that, about the fifth week after conception, covers all the in- 
ternal parts of the eye in its sound state. He observes, that Simon 
Pontius, in his treatise de Coloribus Oculorum, long ago remarked, 
that in blue eyes the interior membranes were less abundantly pro- 
