Albinism

“ Albinism is found in the lower animals, and is exemplified ordinarily by rats, mice, crows, robins, etc. In the Zoologic Garden at Baltimore two years ago was a pair of pure albino opossums. The white elephant is celebrated in the religious history of Oriental nations, and is an object of veneration and worship in Siam. White monkeys and white roosters are also worshiped. In the Natural History Museum in London there are stuffed examples of albinism and melanism in the lower animals. ”

“ The reason for the greater proportion of albinism found in the young is obvious; the young sparrows affected with albinism, lacking usually the physical strength to battle their way in life, meet death prematurely, and thus a very small proportion of the number is permitted to reach maturity, while those that do owe it to some favoring circumstance. Many are picked up and cared for by the public ”

“ Albinism is restricted to no particular class of the animal kingdom; for partial albinism at least is known to occur in Coelentera, worms, Crustacea, Myriapoda, Coleoptera,Arachnida and fishes. The individuals in which this diminished pigmentation is found are for the most part those living in caves, and it is probable that their condition is not truly albinotic, but only temporary and due to the absence of the stimulus of light. ”

“ For the same reason their eyes are not well suited to endure the bright light of day, and they see best in shade or by moonlight. The peculiarity of albinism or leucopathy is hereditary and not confined to the human race, having been observed also in horses, rabbits, rats, mice, &c., birds (white crows or blackbirds are not particularly uncommon) , and fishes. ”

“ The recessive nature of albinism and its distribution in Mendelian fashion is almost certainly as true for man as for lower forms. This has been shown by W. C. Farabee for negroes in Coanoma county, Mississippi. The facts are as follows. An albino negro married a normal negress. They had three children, all males. ”

“ They are to be regarded, however, merely as an albino or colorless "variety" of the Indian species. Their production depends, like that of albinos or white varieties of birds or other animals, on some undetermined conditions affecting development. We occasionally find white varieties of birds—even including that paradoxical anomaly, a white blackbird—and albino cats are as familiar objects as are albino rabbits and white mice. Darwin remarks on the fact that albinism is very susceptible of transmission to offspring, and it is so even in the human race. ”

“ With birds and mammals, however, there is no doubt that complete albino individuals do occur; and among species which, like the jackdaw, certain deer and rabbits, are normally deeply pigmented.
Albinism occurs in all races of mankind, among mountainous as well as lowland dwellers. And, with man, as with other animals, it may be complete or partial. Instances of the latter condition are very common among the negroes of the United States and of South America, and in them assumes a piebald character, irregular white patches being scattered over the general black surface of the body. ”

“ In complete albinismus the skin of the entire body is white, the hair very fine, soft and white or whitish-yellow in color, the irides are colorless or light blue, and the pupils, owing to the absence of pigment in the choroid, are red ”

“ The lips, eye-lids, and feet are distinguished by the inanimate whiteness of the skin noticed in the human albino, while the general appearance of the iris, the eye, and even the countenance, the intolerance of light, the unsettled air they assumed, and the grimace they affected, afforded [155] so many points of resemblance between them and that unhappy variety of our species, as rendered the sight disgusting and humiliating. One who had seen a perfect albino of the human species, would find it impossible to separate the impression of his appearance from that of the animals now before us. ”

“ In the human race the individuals who are thus afflicted, characterized by the dull whiteness of their skins, the deep redness of their eyes, and their colourless, or, as it is generally termed, flaxen, hair, are called Albinos. They are generally timid in disposition, languid in character, and weak both in mind and body. The same original conformation, for it is always born with the individual and never acquired in after life, although sometimes prolonged beyond its limits in the shape of an hereditary legacy, is common to many animals. ”

“ Thirteen living children have been born to them, of whom five have been pure albinos, and eight just as pure representatives of the African type. The first birth was black, after which they regularly alternated, white and black, as far as the tenth, after which all were black.
According to the authorities upon this subject, albinos are usually males, yet four out of the five in this family have been females. The texture of the skin with this class is generally coarse and rough, but with these it has always seemed to me to be fine and delicate. ”

“ But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and Albatross.
What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men— has no substantive deformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. ”

“ For in reality Albinia and I are not alike. It is impossible that we should be. We may be formed on much the same model; eyes and hair may be the same in colouring; but we are not alike. Differences of temperament and character must show in the face. Albinia's torpid easiness of disposition and her willingness to submit, are the precise converse of my untiring energy and troublesome strength of will. Strangers may and sometimes do mistake the one for the other; but those who know us well are apt to deny the fact of any resemblance at all,—which is curious. ”

“ The hair is curly and very light, with a glint of red, and the eyes are red and intolerant of light. Albinos are somewhat repulsive looking, and one is glad to turn the eyes quickly in another direction. Those I have seen were men, well-developed and healthy looking, except that the skin had a pimply rash on it, which may have been due to the strong rays of the sun on a delicate skin. They suffer considerably from the direct rays of the sun on their skin, probably as much as a white man would suffer who had to go about in tropical Africa in a nude condition. ”

“ I cannot put off the human form I strive but strive in vain
30 When Albion rent thy beautiful net of gold and silver twine;
Thou hadst woven it with art, thou hadst caught me in the bands
Of love; thou refusedst to let me go: Albion beheld thy beauty
Beautiful thro' our Love's comeliness, beautiful thro' pity.
The Veil shone with thy brightness in the eyes of Albion,
35 Because it inclosd pity & love; because we lov'd one-another!
Albion lov'd thee! he rent thy Veil! he embrac'd thee! he lov'd thee! ”

“ Albino, al-bī′no, n. a human being or animal whose skin and hair are abnormally white, and the pupil of the eye of pink colour:—fem. Albī′ness:—pl. Albī′nos.—n. Al′binism, state or condition of being an albino. [Sp. albino, whitish—L. albus, white.]
Albite, al′bīt, n. a species of mineral of the felspar family, of a white colour, and forming a constituent of many kinds of rocks. [From L. albus, white.] ”

“ When he pities he propagates, and in the North his progeny are always unimaginative demonstrations. But Albion's spirit of Obedience and Law, his Angel, compels the youth, as they curse the pained heavens, parental potencies of Urizen, to submit to his ideas. The serpent-temple shadows the island, until Albion's angel in the flames of the desire for a more complete tyranny of literal over spiritual law, howling with a yearning like Orc's fiery passion, seeks the trump, the arousing instrument of the last mood of man, and therefore of the last doom. ”

“ When an albino mouse, rat, guinea-pig or rabbit is crossed with either a pure self or pure pied-coloured form, the offspring are similar to, though not always exactly like, the coloured parent; provided, of course, that the albino is pure and is not carrying some colour or pattern determinant which is dominant to that of the coloured parent used. No albinoes, in such a case, will appear among the first generation, but if the individuals of this (F.1) generation are crossed inter se or back crossed with the albino parent, then albino individuals reappear among the offspring. ”

“ Or, to express it otherwise, an albino extracted from yellow parents, bred with an albino extracted from black parents, will give an albino offspring whose gametes in equal numbers are bearers of the black and yellow determinants. And when one of these albinoes is bred with a pure coloured individual, a mixed offspring will appear in the first generation. Some of the individuals will be one or other of the two colours, the determinants of which were borne by the albino, and others the colour of the pigmented parent. ”

“ What did they call you?" asked Rodolph.
"I had hair much more flaxen than now, and the blood was always in my eyes, and so they called me the 'Albino.' The Albinos are the white rabbits amongst men; they have red eyes," added the Chourineur, in a grave tone, and, as it were, with a physiological parenthesis. ”

“ Albano stood by when the strange being came up and spake to the mortally sick man, and turned two stiff, glassy eyes, which looked as if they had been set in, quite away from him with whom he spake,—so fantastic, and yet full of the cold world toward his dying brother,—with loosely hanging face-skin upon significant face-bones,—a gray were-wolf on his hind legs, just charmed out of the beastly hide into the human skin,—like the destroying angel, a destroying man, and yet without passion. ”

“ Human albinos, at least, and probably albinos in the animal grade, are affected by a certain degree, more or less decided, of day-blindness. The characters of the albino result from a deficiency in the colouring principle, common to the skin, hair, and eyes. ”

“ The shock which his father's ideas gave his own, and the relationship of the potshard mountain to the strangers' churchyard, caused Albano to answer rather himself than his father, with a melted ice-drop of displeasure in his eye: "Such a nameless mountain of pots is, upon the whole, also the history of nations. But one would much rather kill one's self on the spot than, after a long life, to bury one's self so namelessly and ingloriously in the mass at last." ”

“ Thus these albinoes exhibit a pattern of pink skin similar in form with the black pattern of the piebald rat. Moreover, some of the albinoes possess these particular “pattern” hairs all over the body and obviously such individuals are carrying the self pattern. There are other details into which we cannot here enter, but which support the interpretation put upon these facts, i.e. that these particular albinoes are carrying in the soma the pattern determinants simultaneously with the absence of some of the factors for pigmentation. ”

“ The lightnings reveal swans, sleeping on the waves under clouds drunk with light, and their flaming trains blaze like gold after them in among the thick trees, [44] as goldfishes turn their burning backs out of the water,—and even around thy summit, Albano, the great eyes of the sunflowers turn on thee their fiery looks, as if kindled by the sparks of the glowworms.
"And in this kingdom of light," thought Albano, trembling, "the still angel of my future hides himself and glorifies it, when he appears. O where dwellest thou, good Liana? In that white temple? ”

“ A true or complete albino is altogether devoid of pigment. One result of this among the Vertebrata is that the eyeball is pink in colour, since the cornea, iris and retina being transparent, the red blood contained in the capillaries is unmasked by the absence of pigmentary material. In man, and doubtless also in lower forms, the absence of this pigment produces the well marked albinotic facies. This is a condition in which the eyelids are brought into a nearly closed position accompanied by blinking movements and a general wrinkling of the skin around the immediate neighbourhood of the eyes. ”

“ A "Perfect" must not be married, but if he burn, he could satisfy the lust of the flesh so long as he remained pure in heart. This concession they, however, kept secret from the Credents, lest they should fall in their esteem. In another Inquisition at Carcassonne, held in A.D. 1308 and 1309, "contra Albigenses," Peter and James Autéri, who with other members of their family, were the last leaders of the Albigenses, declared that true Matrimony is not between male and female, for that is two kinds of flesh, not one, whereas God said, "They two shall become one flesh." ”

“ The extreme case is that of albinos with no pigment in skin, hair, and iris. Two albinos have only albino children, but albinos may come from two pigmented parents.
Similarly, straight-haired parents lack curliness, and two such have only straight-haired children. Also two tall parents have only tall children. Shortness is the trait: tallness is a negative character. Also when both parents lack stoutness (are slender) , all children tend to lack it. ”

“ But was it a sin to love Albine, a sin for which he, Serge, would be damned? No; if his love was clean of all fleshly taint, and added another hope to his desire for eternal life. But, then, how was he to love her? In silence; without speaking a word to her, without taking a step towards her; simply allowing his pure affection to breathe forth, like a sweet perfume, pleasing unto heaven. And Jesus smiled with increasing kindliness, drawing nearer as if to encourage confession, in such wise that the priest grew bolder and began to recapitulate Albine’s charms. ”