A description of the two albinos of Europe, (one twenty-one, the other twenty-four years of age) / extracted from M. Saussure's 'Journey to the Alps,' in the year 1785.

  • Horace Bénédict de Saussure
Date:
1791
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A description of the two albinos of Europe, (one twenty-one, the other twenty-four years of age) / extracted from M. Saussure's 'Journey to the Alps,' in the year 1785. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    I [ 12 ] within the eye there was only found the choroid coat extremely thin and tinged of a pale red colour by veffels filled with difcoloured blood. What was more extraordinary, the Ikin, when detached from different parts of the body, feemed alfo entirely diverted of the rete mucofum ; maceration did not difcover the leaft veftige of this, not even in the wrinkles of the abdomen, where it is moft abundant, and mo ft virtble. M. Buzzi likewife accounts for the white- nefs of the fkin and of the hair, from the ab- fence of the rete mucofum, which, according to him, gives the colour to the cuticle, and to the hairs that are fcattered over it. Among other proofs of this opinion, he alleges a well- known faff, that if the fkin of the blacked: horfe be accidentally deftroyed in any part of the body, the hairs that afterwards grow on that part are always white, becaufe the rete mucofum which tinges thofe hairs is never re¬ generated with the fkin. “ The
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