On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus homo / by Paul Broca ; edited, with the permission of the author, by C. Carter Blake.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the phenomena of hybridity in the genus homo / by Paul Broca ; edited, with the permission of the author, by C. Carter Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    fact, that the union of Caucasian women with Negroes is very frequently non-productive. Mr. Theodore Waitz, author of a scientific treatise on An- thropology (the first volume is entirely devoted to the study of general doctrines), has carefully examined the question of the intermixture of races, and endeavoured to reconcHe the results of these crossings with the system of monogenists. He was, nevertheless, obliged to admit, from the numerous documents coUected, that in many cases the cross-breeds are feebly con- stituted. Thus, in Senegal the ofi-spring of the Foulahs and the Negroes are handsome and more intelligent than the latter, but there are amongst them many stammerers, blind, hunch- backs, and idiots. The children of Arabs and the women of Darfour are debilitated and little vivacious, and the author adds that the children of a Etcropean woman and a Negro are rarely vigorous.^ It seems thus to result from these various investigations, that the union between the Negro and a white woman is little productive, and that their offspring is neither vigorous nor vivacious. Nevertheless, we admit this conclusion with some reserve, because the avowed unions of Negroes with white women are comparatively rare, and consequently the authors who have spoken of them could only have their inferences upon a few facts. The inverse intermixture between the white man and the negress is, on the contrary, very frequent, and as prolific in the first generation as in the direct alliances between individuals of the same race. It is equally known that Mulattoes and Mulatresses are very prolific in their recrossings with the parent races. The great number of individuals of every shade, designated by the name Quadroon, Quinterons, Tercerons, Grifies^ Marabouts, Ca- bres, etc., and by the collective name of mixed hlood, proves it. The hybridity of WTiites and Negroes is thus, at least, equal to 1 Theodor Waitz (of Marburg), Anthropologie der Naturvolher, p. 203. Leipzig, 1859. [Translated into English for the Anthropological Society of London, and edited by J. Fi-ederick Collingwood, Esq., F.G.S., F.E.S.L.: 8vo, London, 1863.—Editob.] MoUien, Voyage dans Vintirieur de I'Afrique. Eafnel, Voyage dans I'Afrique ocddentale, 1846, p. 51. Mohammed-el-Totmsy, Voyage a^(, Darfour, p. 277, trad. Jomard. Paris, 1845.