ON HUMAN HAIR AS A RACE-CHARACTER, EXAMINED
BY THE AID OF THE MICROSCOPE.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. FROM the highest antiquity has the human hair attracted the attention of observers; but, down to a very recent period, it was merely the contour and the external aspect which were taken into consideration. These two characters were thus at all times indicated as distinguishing nations and individuals. The terms lelótpixes, ovlótpiges, Favooi, muppoi, etc., constantly occur in Greek authors and their successors.
Modern science has somewhat enlarged the field of observation as regards colour; but it was only by the use of the microscope that we are enabled to add fresh characters to those accessible to the naked eye. It is by these means that Heusinger was enabled to indicate the elliptic form of the hair of the Negro. Koelliker confirmed this observation, and added other characters. Erdl applied the microscope to the study of the colour in animals. Brown finally, according to the tendency of the American school, published in the remarkable work of Schoolcraft, his researches, in which he endeavours to establish specific characters, or nearly so, for the hair of the Aryan, the Negro, the Chinese, and the American, both in the form of the bulb and the body, and also in the structure of the latter, at least as regards the presence or the absence of the so-called medullary canal.
This question has for many years excited my warmest interest.
* Read before the Anthropological Society of Paris, March 19, 1803. VOL. II.-NO. IV.