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Miscellanea Anthropologica.

Secretion of Milk in New-born Children. By NATALIS GUILLOT. (Archiv. Gén. de Méd.)

The breasts of healthy children of both sexes secrete milk immediately after birth. The function commences after the falling-off of the navel string from the seventh to the twelfth day, and ceases to flow after the lapse of a few days. The secretion is normal, and is only seen in a healthy child. The mammary glands are then perceptibly tumified. The milk may be obtained by pressure, sometimes by drops or jets. It is white, neutral, or alkaline, and becomes acid in atmospheric air. It consists of a serous and creamy portion, like women's milk, and presents, under the microscope, the same globules, containing casein, fat, and sugar. It is, in fact, a true milk. This secretion of milk in new-born children has been noticed before, but has been considered an exceptional case; hence its name in Germany, hexenmilch (witch milk). Schlossberger obtained from a boy a drachm of such milk. It consisted of 96 75 water, 0-82 fat, 0.05 ash, 2.38 casein, sugar and extracted matter. In the same paper Dr. Guillot strongly recommends the daily weighing of newborn children, which gives a positive index of their state of health. They ought to gain daily 10-15 grammes. The loss of weight frequently indicates an approaching disease.

On Longevity, with special reference to Hessen. By Dr. NEBAL, in Zweiter Berecht der oberheis. Gesellschaft fur Natur und Heilkunde. Giessen.

This

It has been computed that one in 4000 reaches 100 years. proportion is found in the northern parts of England and Scotland, Sweden, and Norway. An example of the most advanced age is that of Patrecz Czartan at Karansebes, not far from Temeswar, in the Banat. He was born 1539, and died 1724, aged 185 years; his youngest son of his third marriage was 97. There is an instance of a more advanced age, ostensibly from an epitaph in the Leonhaud church of Linden, in which the age of Thomas Kars, died 1588, is stated to have been 207. Easten, in his Human Longevity, published 1799, gives 1712 instances of centenarians. Van Oven (On the Decline of Life) gives a list of 2000 centenarians. Among the Germans, George Wunder, born at Wülferstadt (Salzburg district) April 23, 1626, died in the hospital of Griez, December 12, 1761, aged 136 (well authenticated). Hannemann (Ephem. nat. cur., 1680) mentions a man of Rostock, who died at the age of 152. Hessen has produced an older man, George Burkhard, of Wettesingen district, Zreremberg. Winkelmann (Beschriebung von Hessen) says of him, that at the age of 180 he appeared in March 30, 1597, as a witness in the High Court of Marburg, and was then in full possession of his intellect. He enumerates 101 persons in and about Giessen, from 1559 to 1849, who had arrived at 100 years and upwards. John Hilcke died, aged 120, at Geismar; Joh. Casp. Drapp, aged 123, in 1715, at Petershain; Joseph Brunner, born in Treppstadt, November 26, died November 20th 1827, aged 121 years. He enjoyed a pension from the King of Bavaria.

Extracts from Leib und Seele (Body and Soul). By J. SCHALler. Weimar.

The question whether the races of mankind have descended from one couple, or from many, is, however interesting, of but small im portance as regards the psychical nature of man. The difficulties which surround the former assumption are apparently insurmountable. The descent from one couple is defended chiefly on the ground that the identity of human nature is inseparably connected with that view. But this is an error. Whatever may have been the origin of mankind, it does not follow that by the separate origin of races, they are necessarily constituted different species. On the other hand, the assumption of descent from a common origin does not à priori enable us to form a judgment on the physical and mental capacity of the existing races. Men descended from one common stock may degenerate so, that human nature is nearly effaced in them. We may, if we please, entertain the hope that the difference of races may, in the lapse of time, by the concurrence of influences, become fainter, and finally disappear, and we connect with this hope the conviction that the lowest existing races are capable of the highest intellectual development. But we know of no probable process by which the degenerate races may return to their original healthy physical type, without which a psychical amelioration is scarcely cogitable.

Viewing the question from a scientific point, the assumption of different original stocks is supported by the pertinacity with which the various races retain, under the most different conditions, their specified forms. But we may admit such an original difference of races, without being compelled, as naturalists, to consider mankind as separable in species. In order to prove that the races are not different species, the fact is adduced that these races can interbreed, and produce fertile offspring. It is clear that the whole question becomes confused, unless we are first agreed as to the notion species. If it be maintained that only such races of animals-but these without exception-belong to the same species which can interbreed and produce again an offspring prolific between themselves, we possess apparently a sure criterion of identity of species established by nature. On account of the insufficiency of observations, this notion of species is not yet systematically established by zoology. Other characters of specific difference have therefore been sought after. In order to establish the difference of species in mankind, despite the fact that all races interbreed, the supporters of that doctrine have adduced the facts of successful interbreeding between animals considered by zoologists to belong to different species. But admitting these facts as perfectly authenticated, we might just, on account of the successful pairing, consider them as belonging to the same species despite of striking organic differences. And why should zoology hesitate to abandon, in such cases, the theory of difference of species whenever a prolific interbreeding is sufficiently established, so much the more as zoology assumes the domestic dog, though exhibiting the greatest difference in organic structure, to belong to one species, it being certain, that were there not existing in these dogs the capacity of

interbreeding, no one would hesitate to consider them as belonging to different species?

Giebel (Hunde rasen oder Hundearten-Dog races or dog species?) says: "Nowhere in nature, nor in the domesticated state, do we see races so much differing as the greyhound and the terrier, the poodle and the Egyptian dog, the spitz, the bulldog, the retriever, &c. These typical races of domestic dogs diverge from each other, not merely more than the species of many beasts of prey, but represent in certain characters, a great variety of carnivora." Or are we to consider the fact of prolific intercourse as not decisive with respect to identity of species? At any rate, it is somewhat hazardous to to consider animals as belonging to the same species, simply on the ground of their being reproductive, though we find in their organisation such decided differences, that much less would be required to induce us, in other animals, to consider them as specifically distinct. Certainly, if we admit fertile interbreeding to be a decided criterion, an essential difficulty to separate mankind in different species is removed. The differences obtaining between the races of mankind are certainly not so trenchant that we are forced to consider them as specifically distinct. When, however, we consult systematic zoology, it cannot be denied that differences considerably less are deemed sufficient to separate animals in different species. Such is the present state of this question. We must leave it to zoologists to determine the still confused question as regards the races of mankind. We are chiefly interested in the question as regards the mental nature of man in the assumption specific differences of mankind.

We reject the theory as one-sided, that it is of no importance in what way we view the question of specific differences of mankind. The physical aspect no doubt presents itself first, but soon the psychical nature of man asserts its importance.

In viewing mankind as consisting of different species, no one has gone so far as to deny the identity of the genus humanum. With regard to the mental character of these various races, we must first consider in what consists the specific character of man in his psychical aspect. We have in a preceding chapter designated personality and free will as the specific difference between man and the brute. If we deny to any individual race this personality and free will, that is, if we assert that this or that species of mankind will never arrive, not even by the influence of other races, to a consciousness of their personal dignity, we may call such individuals men, but in point of fact they are not more so than incurable cretins. The possibility of meeting individual tribes, consisting of such cretin-like individuals, cannot à priori be denied. But we have no right to consider such a complex of beings as a particular race, and to degrade hy man nature to the level of the ape.

No race has been found absolutely incapable of any intellectual improvement. No race has been found without any moral feeling or ideas of right and wrong, nor any who had no idea of their personality. . . . It is difficult to decide the question how far many so called savages are capable of improvement, either by their own innate power, or at least by foreign influence.

THE

ANTHROPOLOGICAL REVIEW.

MAY, 1864.

AN INQUIRY INTO CONSANGUINEOUS MARRIAGES AND PURE RACES.*

BY DR. E. DALLY,

SECRETARY TO THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS; CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

TRANSLATED BY HUGH J. C. BEAVAN, F.R.G.S., F.A.S.L.

I. PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

BEFORE entering into an analysis of the facts upon which depends the theory attributing serious inconveniences and numberless dangers to posterity from marriages between cousins, allow me to offer to your notice an essay on this question which I published in July, 1862, entitled "Des dangers attribués aux mariages consanguins." Since the appearance of this treatise I have not appeared before the Society, and the question has never been mooted at its meetings. M. Devay, whose loss we all deplore, was thus deprived of an opportunity of presenting to the Society an answer which he had made to my work: "Un mot sur les mariages consanguins, réponse à une attaque." It seemed, then, that the question of consanguineous marriages, so complex, so extensive, would not be discussed before you for a long period; but since M. Boudin, in the last number of the Memoirs of the Society, has published a fifth edition of his work, "Sur les dangers des unions consanguines," it obliges me to communicate to you at once the result of the inquiries I undertook more than a year ago, d which I intended to bring before your notice at some more distant period.

If I thus anticipate the time when my researches would have been complete, it is not, indeed, because an answer has been made to my

This paper was read before the Anthropological Society of Paris by Dr. E. Dally, November 5th, 1863. (TR.)

VOL. II.-NO. V.

F

former objections. But time passes, and statements of M. Boudin are continually appearing, without opposition, without criticism, in journals, in reviews, and as essays; in all of which he declares it is impossible to resist the conclusions of our honourable colleague. Besides, as in some notes in which my name appears, a semblance of an answer has been made to my former work, some persons may believe that such an answer has really been made. It is with the intention of combating these two tendencies that I take the liberty of submitting to you to-day my researches, sufficient, I believe, to contest with the disciples of M. Boudin a triumph as blatant as it has been easy. That the readers of M. Boudin's writings, not being able to examine into all they read, and especially the statistics and extracts, have been struck with the mathematical precision of his assertions, and the eloquence of his remarks, can be easily understood; but that literary men, critics, and above all, those who have written on the subject on their own account, should not have given themselves the trouble to examine the documents furnished by M. Boudin, and that in the presence of a contradictory work they have reproduced without any further explanations the same documents, the same notes, the same conclusions, is a thing which certainly does no honour to the criticism of the age. Allow me to explain the present state of the discussion.

No one, I said, has, up to the present time, answered the objections contained in my work. Messrs. Devay, Boudin, and others have occupied themselves a little about me, certainly, but I have no longer the right to refute the essay-rather too personal, perhaps published by M. Devay, and M. Boudin has restricted himself in his remarks to the criticism of comparatively unimportant details. In the first of these remarks he accuses me of having produced "neither a fact nor a statistic." It was not my business to do so. I had not to sustain a doctrine, but to examine that which was already produced. Now, neither the documents which have been exhibited, nor the methods which have been employed as a means of giving them sense, have appeared to me to offer the necessary guarantee for the introduction into physiology and legislation of a doctrine which might be made the subject of domestic dissentions and of individual evil. Things being as they are, it is for those who desire to modify them to give motives worthy of their projects. Besides, I could, long ago, have produced both facts and statistics, but it is not in the face of attacks of which I am the subject that I choose to resume this question, which would prevent me from attending to other work.

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