On the functions of the colouring matter of the skin in the dark races of mankind / by Robert Mortimer Glover.

  • Glover, Robert Mortimer, 1816-1859.
Date:
[1840?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the functions of the colouring matter of the skin in the dark races of mankind / by Robert Mortimer Glover. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    On the Fwictions of the Colouring Matter of the Skin in the Dark Faces of Mankind. By Robert Mortimer Glover, M.D., Lecturer on Chemistry in the Newcastle-on-Tyne School of Medicine. (Read to the British Association at the Newcastle Meeting.) (From the Edinburgh Neiv Philosophical Journal for October 1840J Various hints and hypotheses have been put forth as to the functions performed by the peculiar organization of the skin in the dark races of mankind. The opinions of Sir Everard Home, published in the Philosophical Transactions for 1821, have been generally adopted by physiologists as apparently founded on a methodical attempt to investigate the subject by direct experiment, and to elucidate it by analogical reasoning. The experiments of Sir Everard give results certainly quite opposed to what has been determined by physical observers respecting the laws which affect the radiation from, and ab- sorption of. heat by ^coloured surfaces. This circumstance drew my attention to the subject, and led me to repeat some of the experiments related by Sir Everard. It may be mentioned, before entering on the subject, that this inquiry was proposed by Lord Bacon. The structure of the skin and of its layers is yet involved in some doubt as to many particulars; but so far as our in- quiry is concerned there is no doubt whatever. It is clear that there is a spongy or vascular layer between the cuticle and true skin; or on the surface of the latter, constituting a portion of it. It is also certain that the colouring matter of the skin resides in this region. And that the intensity of shade is the greater or less abundance of the colouring matter. Hence the European and the Negro furnish extreme instances in this inquiry; since in the one the colouring matter is in small quantity or of light shade, whereas the other has it so abundantly that in him we speak of the pigmentum nigrum. Between these extremes exist many curious varieties, in whom the functions- of the colouring matter are well worthy of con- sideration, but we have data to reason only with regard to the European or White, and the Negro. Indeed, in many of tho