On anthropological colour phenomena in Belgium and elsewhere / by John Beddoe.

  • John Beddoe
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On anthropological colour phenomena in Belgium and elsewhere / by John Beddoe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    course of the first Wo or three years, and it changes little after¬ wards. The consequence is that we often see young children with dark eyes and fair hair, which are difficult to classify. Judging by the hair they are blondes, by the eyes brunettes, and they will most develop later in life all the characters of the darker element of our population. For the same reason I think little useful anthropo¬ logical knowledge will be gained by making observations on a large number of children of different ages, as the result will depend on the colour of the hair and eyes of the predominant age, and this in its turn will denend on the kind of schools and other circumstances i under which the observations are made.* If the children were arranged in groups of two, or at most of three years, they could be compared together, and the order of pigmentation could be deter¬ mined. Unless analysed in this manner, I should have little confi¬ dence in the statistics which are reported from the Continent, and referred to by Dr. Beddoe, in determining the racial elements of the people. Mr. Lewis agreed with the previous speaker in hoping that statistics of hair and eyes would be so drawn up as to show not merely the total quantity of dark or light hair and eyes among a number of persons, but to distinguish between those who had dark hair and eyes, light hair and eyes, light hair and dark eyes, and dark hair and light eyes. He had no doubt that there was a distinct type the representative of a race of people in this country having dark hair and light eyes ; some ethnologists believed in two races only, one light haired and light eyed, and the other dark haired and dark eyed, of which all other varieties were mere mixtures, but he was satisfied that, if a sufficient number of statistics distinguishing those varieties could be collected throughout the country, the existence of a third type would be clearly demonstrated. * Is ote by Dr. Beddoe.—The limits of age, and the predominant ages, would be the same throughout the kingdom in the primary schools. This objection is therefore, I think, invalid. \jReprinted from the Journal of the Anthropological Institute May, 1881.] Harrison and Sons, Printers in Ordinary to Her Majesty, St. Martin's Lane.