of gregarinæ are light, increased temperature, and a moist atmosphere; and he declares that in the ballroom these are not without their influence on the parasites when they exist on false hair, for they at once revive, grow, and multiply, get disseminated in millions, and in consequence of the increased respiration produced by the exertion of dancing, are inhaled freely into the lungs, reach their specific gregarine nature, and after a while induce disease in the body.

In these quotations prevalent fashions were depicted as sources of danger, inducing discomfort and disease. A writer in one of the daily papers ("Investigator") asserted that he had witnessed from direct observation the development of gregarinæ into lice, an assumption that implies a liberty with Darwinism that its most zealous and radical devotees would at the present time hesitate to suggest. It is only just to say that the Lancet, which first noticed the matter, and confined itself to a mere mention of the facts, urged its readers to accept the statements put forth, with the gravest caution. Lindemann's assertions are very startling to scientific men, because they are wholly in antagonism with observed facts. Whilst scientific research has as yet afforded little insight of the habits of the lower forms of animal and vegetable life, the revelations of the microscope within the last few years are pregnant with significance as regards their ubiquity, and teach us that we are not to be astonished if we find living forms in unexpected sites, undergoing the most manifold variations in aspect when brought under the play of different influences. At the same time we have the amplest experience to caution us against the acceptance of new species without the keenest criticism. What, then, is the truth in this matter? In my devotion to the subject of diseases of the skin, it has lain in my way during the last ten years to investigate the whole subject of diseases of the hair connected with the development of vegetable parasites, and I think no one has made a larger number of microscopic observations. I have never seen a true gregarina in connection with the hair; but I have recently found a vegetable growth on false German hair answering in naked eye appearances to that described by Lindemann as little dark specks surrounding the hair towards its end. Gregarinæ, according to Lindemann, are made up of cells, which he states to be vegetable, and it is possible that that which I have found may be identical with his gregarinæ. I cannot help thinking that many bodies totally dissimilar in nature have been classed with gregarine, which my friend Ray Lankester, than whom no higher authority on the point exists, declares to be truly animal. The growth I have found I now proceed to describe.

If you take a hair on which the parasite exists, and hold it between yourself and the light, towards

the outer half you will see one or more, perhaps half a dozen, little dark knots the size of pinpoints, surrounding the shaft of the hair; they are readily felt on drawing the hair through the fingers; they are somewhat difficult to detach. If a hair be placed under the microscope with a quarter-inch objective, the mass will be seen to be made up of cellular bodies surrounding the hair, such as are seen in figs. 75 and 76, kindly drawn for me by Dr. Braxton Hicks, F.R.S.

Fig. 75.

It will be seen that the mass has the appearance of a fungus growth, of which two distinct forms are here present, viz., mycelial or filamentous, seen in the central part of fig. 75; and sporular or cellular, seen in fig. 76, which is the outer part of fig. 75 considerably enlarged.

Fig. 76.

The hair is apparently healthy, and if the slide be pressed the mass will break away from the hair on either side, bringing away with it more or less of the cuticle, and leaving behind a healthy shaft. The cells are seen to be of various shapes and sizes.

Fig. 77.

Fig. 77 gives a good representation of them; they are from a to do inch; many are like the

torula cells, developed from Penicillium. Others are larger, undergoing division very actively, as in fig. 78, seen with a inch; they may be subdivided into two, three, or four parts, or much more freely. This indicates the assumption by the parasite of an algal condition.

Fig. 78.

In watching the mass on the hair carefully, it is evident that a number of small cells become detached from the outer or sporular form, and at once move actively about. These small cells indicate an active growth by subdivision, and a fruitful source of propagation; they subsequently become the cells seen in fig. 77. Certainly this variety of fungus so far described is the most active growth I have come across in my researches, and I have been enabled to germinate it most successfully, so as to set all questions as to its nature completely at rest. Placed under favourable circumstances in water, the spores (figs. 76 and 77) enlarge considerably, and the mycelial filaments increase also, as seen in

become filled with smaller cells; and in others, in addition to these, processes have been put forth from the circumference of the walls in a radiating manner; in other cases the enlarged cells have two long cilia attached to them, by which they move about rapidly, whilst a part of the hair, previous to this free from the fungus, has become dotted all over by minute cells similar to those seen in the interior of the larger ones. All this is seen in fig. 80.

But more than this, I have observed most distinctly large cells filled with smaller cells, furnished with exceedingly delicate radiating processes and putting forth pseudopodia. One of these cells of large size is represented in fig. 81.

Fig. 79.

fig. 79, which represents the fungus after its growth two days in water; but there is at this time to be

Fig. 81.

It will here be seen to have assumed the features of an amæboid body. Smaller ones are seen in fig. 82.

Fig. 82.

Nothing could have been more distinct to myself, and those who were observing with me, than this peculiar form; and it seems to me that we have here a pretty complete history of the life of this fungus-namely, the sporular subdividing and assuming an algal form, which in turn becomes amœbiform, and furnishes ciliated cells that supply the earliest condition of the fungus, as seen in fig. 80, scattered over the hair.

But not satisfied with these results, I set to work to grow the fungus in sugar and water, under constant observation. A rapid enlargement of the sporular cells took place, as in the former case, and in some of the larger cells the most distinct circulation of the granules around the inner circumference of the parent cell was witnessed by myself and my friends, and a beautiful object it was. Finally, I obtained a result similar to the former one.

Fig. 84.

The ends of the filaments seen in fig. 85 are analogous, in fact identical with those forms which I have figured in my work on parasitic diseases of the skin as resulting from the growth of oidium. The globose head containing spores, is an early

Here, again, we have the growth taking on an algal phase in one direction, and fructifying into a perfect fungus on the other hand. The drawings I have given were made on the spot from the microscopic objects, and I must do the artist credit to say he has most faithfully and cleverly portrayed the actual appearances presented by the parasite. The observations now recorded are in complete harmony with those of Dr. Braxton Hicks on the Volvox, and De Bary in his work published in 1864, at Leipsic, "Die Mycetozoen, Ein Beitrag zur Kentnniss Der Neidersten Organismen," and are completely confirmatory of the opinion before advanced by myself, that the fungi found upon or within man belong to one genus, and undergo an infinity of variations under different circumstances. In the present case the fungus approaches to the

character of Torula rather than any other. There are many most interesting questions that cannot be discussed here. The only one I need refer to is the influence which this species of parasite has in the production of disease. In the immediate condition in which we find it on the hair it need cause but little anxiety; but the minute form as seen in fig. 80 transplanted to a suitable soiland the scalp of delicate children best furnishes itwould produce disease of the scalp: of that I have no doubt. Luckily, the tissues of adults, viz., those who wear chignons, are not prone to the more severe forms of diseases produced by vegetable parasites; and as the mass of false hair used in England is free from the fungus described above, the total danger on the whole is slight.

IN

TILBURY FOX, M.D.Lond.

THE UNITY OF MANKIND.

N a thousand different ways we are continually reminded of the common origin of the whole human race, irrespective of colour, language, or habitat. The coincidences observable betwixt the usages and traditions of nations, often very far removed from each other, are endless; and plainly point to a time when the minor differences which at present divide mankind were unknown. The writers of works upon Geography and Ethnology often perplex the student, instead of aiding him, by presenting him with some highly complex and utterly unworkable list of the divisions of mankind'; whereas if they kept to the broad and simple lines of demarcation, which nature has herself laid down, they would be doing a great service to the cause of science.

The simplest mode of classifying the human race appears to me to be by colour; and, taking this as the basis of operations, there are three varieties of men-the white, brown, and black; but of these the brown is merely the first variety in a transition state.

The white nations are the Circassians, only one branch of whom differs in colour from the parent stem; the Mongols, including the Chinese, Tartars, (to whom belong all the tribes of Chinese, Independent Tartary, and of Siberia,) Turks, Japanese, and Coreans; the Arabs (and Moors), the Persians and Esquimaux (akin to whom are the Fins, Laps, Samoyedes, Biscayans, and Magyars).

The brown nations comprise the American Aborigines, the Asiatic-African races (Abyssinians, Egyptians, Kaffirs, and Gallas); the Hottentots; the Malays (also Malay Polynesians and Hovahs of Madagascar); Affghans; and Indo-Chinese races.

The black are few in number, i.e., the Negroes of Africa and Polynesia; the Papuans (of whom the Negrittos are probably a variety); the Hindoos (who

are Circassians), and other races which under exceptional circumstances have changed hue.

It is very important to prove that the brown nations are merely white nations becoming black; because, if we can do so, it will be a complete answer to the assertions of those individuals who dispute the identity of the white and black races, on the ground that we nowhere see the change between the two extremes of colour going on. If we can succeed in convincing them that this change goes on through the medium of the brown races, we shall have removed an important obstacle to the general acknowledgment of the unity of mankind. That white nations have become black, we know from history, and the testimony of our senses; for, at the present day, there are the black Jews of Bombay, the Hindoos, and the Shegya Arabs of Nubia, all perfectly black, whilst the great mass of their respective nations remain white; and that this change was produced solely by climatic influences, we are sure from the fact that in every one of these cases intermarriages with other tribes have been strictly forbidden. Of the Shegya Arabs, who live down the Nile above Dongola, Mr. Waddington says: "They are distinguished in every respect from the negroes, by the brightness of their colour, by their hair and the regularity of their features, by the mild and dewy lustre of their eyes, and by the softness of their touch, in which last respect they yield not to Europeans."

The first thing that we have to prove, then, is that a white skin under certain influences becomes brown, and secondly, that the brown under like circumstances deepens into black. About the truth of the first clause I suppose there cannot exist much difference of opinion; an inspection of the face and hands of a countryman, or of the complexion of an old Indian resident, will sufficiently prove the reddening and tanning influence of the sun. To my mind the fact that amongst the brown nations the children and high castes who are protected from the sun, are nearly as white as Europeans, conclusively proves this. The Parsees, the ancient Guebres or fire-worshippers of Persia, who fled before the Mahometan invasion under the Caliph Omar, in A.D. 651, to Bombay and Western India, must originally have been of the same fair, yellowish complexion as the modern Persians, but are now so altered by the Indian climate as to be of a dark blackish brown, although they have not intermarried with the natives. No nation exhibits this facility for changing hue, consequent upon geographical position, more clearly than the Arabs. Bruce observes that ". some of the women are exceedingly fair," and on the mountains of Ruddua, near Yambo, on the coast of Yemen, he was told that the water freezes there in winter, and that some of the inhabitants have red hair and blue eyes, a thing scarcely ever to be seen but in the coldest

mountains in the East. The Arabs of Muscat, on the eastern part of the peninsula, are described as resembling Mulattoes in colour, of a sickly yellow hue, with a deeper brownish tinge about the eyes, neck, and joints. Volney says that some of the Bedouins are black, and the Arabs of Nubia whom I have previously described, are assuredly so. Here are the three gradations-yellow, brown, and black. Singularly enough the same conditions which produce blackness seem also to produce the crisp and curly hair erroneously called "wool," for Bruce says that the tribes who inhabit the middle of the deserts have locks somewhat crisped, extremely fine, and approaching the woolly hair of the negro.

It has always been noticed that brown individuals were very numerous amongst black nations, such as the Negroes, Australians, and Hindoos, especially amongst those inhabiting the healthier districts of their respective countries; this otherwise inexplicable fact is satisfactorily solved by adopting the theory that it is the brown nations which under favourable circumstances become black. Fortunately we are not left only to conjecture upon this subject, for Winwood Reade tells us in his Savage Africa," that the Camma tribes inhabiting the interior of the Gabun country have entirely changed their complexion since they came down to the coast for the purpose of trade with Europeans.

Within the memory of man it was rare to find a black individual amongst them, now they have all become black. There is collateral evidence on this point, for higher up the coast nearer the Senegal the red Foulahs (who are strongly suspected to have been once white) have been swallowed up so entirely in the black Foulahs, who have come to the French and English settlements to trade, as to be practically extinct. This has been hitherto attributed to intermarriage with the natives; but, as there is no proof of its having been carried on to an extent sufficient to account for such a transformation, it seems most reasonable to consider it a parallel case to that cited by Winwood Reade.

This gentleman, in order to account for the selfevident fact that the great majority of the Negro race are actually brown, and not black as we have been accustomed to consider them, broaches a theory well worthy of consideration; he asserts, and strongly supports the assertion, that the distinctive blackness of the West African Negro, as well as his other physical defects, are the result of disease. Dr. Livingstone tells us, in his recent work on "The Zambezi and its Tributaries," that the negroes there are light brown in colour, and that none of the peculiar malformations of the frame which we have come to regard as inseparable from the true negro are known, so that the question is seriously suggested, how is it that the negro of the Guinea coast differs so much from his congeners

on the East coast? Winwood Reade believes that the solution to this question is to be found in the pestilential climate of the West coast which has become quite proverbial. I would go further, and would suggest that in the case of every black nation throughout the world, its blackness is the result of disease. It is a significant fact that the same conditions as those prevailing in West Africa, exist in every land where black races are found, and these conditions are a flat and swampy country, usually a sea-coast, intense heat, rank vegetation, and a more or less pestilential climate. Who can deny that the Andamans, the lowlands of the Indian Peninsula, and the shores of most of the East India Islands, exactly answer to this description ? Wherever the land is higher and the climate more healthy, the race is found to be more muscular and lighter (browner) in colour, as is the case in Australia, Papua, Fiji, Yoruba, and the South Indian highlands.

That the blackness is caused by disease is proved by the fact that the more intense the colour the more degraded the mind, the more stunted and distorted the body, and the shorter the average duration of life become. In the Hindoo this is perhaps marked less distinctly than in the others, but he comes from a better stock, and who can deny that he is terribly deteriorated, especially in his physical strength and length of life, when compared with other Circassian races? It may be said, in objection to this theory, that if the blackness is caused by climate and surroundings, this ought to disappear when the Negro is placed in a different position, as he is in the West Indies and America. It must be remembered, however, that two influences militate against his restoration to the original type. Firstly, he is the descendant of a nation of criminals; for most of the negroes who were sold to the slavers were negro criminals, and therefore, according to the theory of natural selection, ought to be, as he is, the most deeply degraded variety of his race. And secondly, that after all, his external circumstances were not much changed by his transfer, for he was generally employed in districts which could not safely be cultivated by whites, and the delta of the Mississippi, the lowlands of the West India Islands, and the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, are very little more salubrious than his native Guinea. Here I must conclude my essay, which I intended to be both brief and comprehensive, but which has ended by being long and confined to one or two topics. Perhaps I may finish the subject on a future occasion, by giving some interesting facts which I have gathered from various sources, in conjunction with two or three examples of the identity of the customs and traditions of nations far removed from each other, which have come under my notice. F. A. A.