the relationship between the pigmentation of the hair and eyes of the individual and his mental characteristics, his bent towards criminality, his health and his capacity for survival has received the widest discussion.[1]
The relation of pigment to selection has been discussed chiefly from two points of view—that of urban selection[2] and that of susceptibility
As early as 1904 Pearson,[3] working with Pfitzner's data for Lower Elsass, suggested that the high correlation between age and pigmentation in the case of post mortem cases is more nearly explained by a selective death rate of the lighter types than by the assumption of a darkening with age alone. In the same year appeared a most suggestive paper by Strumball,[4] who attempted by the comparison of hospital censuses with the general English population to ascertain whether susceptibility to various diseases is dependent upon the anthropometric characteristics of the individuals affected. He concluded that blond features are associated with acute rheumatism, heart disease, tonsilitis and osteo-arthritis, and that the brunette traits are associated with nervous diseases, tuberculosis and malignant diseases.[5]
MacDonald[6] finds that for scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles and whooping cough among Glasgow school children recuperative power is
- ↑ To mention even the chief of these papers, the most of which are based on data or methods inadequate for conclusive results, would require too much space.
- ↑ Anthropologists have devoted much attention to the highly complex problem of the difference in pigmentation between urban and the surrounding rural populations. Ripley in his "Races of Europe" gives a good general discussion, to disease.
- ↑ K. Pearson, Biometrika, 3: 464-465.
- ↑ F. C. Strumball, "Physical Characters and Morbid Proclivities," Saint Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, 39: 63-126, 1904.
- ↑ Of course, general suggestions and some statistical work precede Strumball's work. To many of these he refers. More recently, in a discussion on "Heredity and Disease" (Proc. Roy. Soc. Med., 21: 96-98, 1908), he returns to some phases of the question and concludes that the onset of tuberculosis is earlier in blondes, but that the disease is more frequent in dark types.
- ↑ D. MacDonald, "Pigmentation of the Hair and Eyes of Children Suffering from Acute Fevers, its Effect on Susceptibility, Recuperative Power and Race Selection," Biometrika, 8: 13-39, 1911. Here he has brought together a detailed review of the earlier theories and evidences. While his résumé is restricted to writings by those of scientific standing, the diversity of results show that much of what has been authoritatively laid down is nothing more than casual observation and vague suggestion.
discussed by Cuenot, Little, Castle, Morgan, Bateson, Wilson, Durham and others. Apparently, no one has succeeded in finding a mouse pure to yellowness. The suggestion has been made that two gametes both having the determiner for yellow are incapable of uniting in fertilization or that they are not viable if they do unite.
