with but little success (61. In the spring of 1862 I obtained
permission from the Director-General of the Medical department of the
Army, to transmit to the surgeons of the various regiments on foreign
service a blank table, with the following appended remarks, but I have
received no returns. As several well-marked cases have been recorded
with our domestic animals of a relation between the colour of the
dermal appendages and the constitution; and it being notorious that
there is some limited degree of relation between the colour of the
races of man and the climate inhabited by them; the following
investigation seems worth consideration. Namely, whether there is any
relation in Europeans between the colour of their hair, and their
liability to the diseases of tropical countries. If the surgeons of the
several regiments, when stationed in unhealthy tropical districts,
would be so good as first to count, as a standard of comparison, how
many men, in the force whence the sick are drawn, have dark and
light-coloured hair, and hair of intermediate or doubtful tints; and if
a similar account were kept by the same medical gentlemen, of all the
men who suffered from malarious and yellow fevers, or from dysentery,
it would soon be apparent, after some thousand cases had been
tabulated, whether there exists any relation between the colour of the
hair and constitutional liability to tropical diseases. Perhaps no such
relation would be discovered, but the investigation is well worth
making. In case any positive result were obtained, it might be of some
practical use in selecting men for any particular service.
Theoretically the result would be of high interest, as indicating one
means by which a race of men inhabiting from a remote period an
unhealthy tropical climate, might have become dark-coloured by the
better preservation of dark-haired or dark-complexioned individuals
during a long succession of generations. ), to ascertain how far it
holds good. The late Dr. Daniell, who had long lived on the West Coast
of Africa, told me that he did not believe in any such relation. He was
himself unusually fair, and had withstood the climate in a wonderful
manner. When he first arrived as a boy on the coast, an old and
experienced negro chief predicted from his appearance that this would
prove the case. Dr. Nicholson, of Antigua, after having attended to
this subject, writes to me that dark-coloured Europeans escape the
yellow fever more than those that are light-coloured. Mr. J.M. Harris
altogether denies that Europeans with dark hair withstand a hot climate
better than other men: on the contrary, experience has taught him in
making a selection of men for service on the coast of Africa, to choose
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