Melanism

“ In all races there occur abnormal varieties, which should be observed with reference to their being hereditary, such as Albinos, whose dead-whiteness is due to absence of pigment from the skin. Even such tendencies as that to the occurrence of red hair where the ordinary hue is black, or to melanism or diseased darkening of the skin, are worth remark. ”

“ Nor is Blackness inconsistent with Beauty, which even to our European Eyes consists not so much in Colour, as an Advantageous Stature, a Comely Symmetry of the parts of the Body, and Good Features in the Face. So that I see not why Blackness should be thought such a Curse to the Negroes, unless perhaps it be, that being wont to go Naked in those Hot Climates, the Colour of their Skin does probably, according to the Doctrine above deliver'd, make the Sun-beams more Scorching to them, than they would prove to a people of a White Complexion. ”

“ Lustre and Colour.—Lustrous, sparkling eyes, glossy hair, pearly teeth,—where would human beauty be without them without the delicate tints and blushes of the skin, the brown or blue iris, the golden or chestnut locks, the ebony eyebrows and lashes?
Yet the greatest art-critics incline to the opinion that, on the whole, colour is a less essential ingredient of beauty than form. “Colour assists beauty,” says Winckelmann, but “the essence of beauty consists not in colour but in shape.” “A negro might be called handsome when the conformation of his face is handsome.” ”

“ The colours of these cells blend with that of the blood, thus producing, according to their number and depth of coloration, the brunette, black, yellow, or red complexion. The palm of the negro’s hand is whiter than the rest of his body, because there the horny epidermis is so thick that the black pigmentary matter cannot be seen through it. And the reason why every negro is born to blush unseen is because the pigmentary matter in his skin is so deep and abundant that it neutralises the colour of the blood. ”

“ The human skin develops pigments to protect itself against a strong sun, and the quantity of pigment in the skin varies with the intensity of the sun.
“It is therefore the men who live in the hottest and least shaded parts of the world—that is to say, in the African, that we find the blackest skin. The white peoples, on the contrary, are confined to a region where the humidity of the atmosphere forms a screen against the rays of the sun. Finally, between the Negro and the White, is the Yellow man, who is a product of desiccating grasslands with seasonal extremes of temperature.” ”

“ From this time on, the more I was thrown with her in the intimate way required by our coöperation, the more I began actually to find in her a positive beauty, a beauty that was truly of her race and type—a beauty that foreshadowed what, were environment to permit its development, her race might in time attain, when, even though the skin were still dark, the features, insensibly modified by mental processes, would lose something of the extravagance of modeling now so repellent to whites. ”

“ The color of the skin, that important mark of race, may be best understood by looking at the darkest variety. The dark hue of the negro does not lie so deep as the innermost or true skin, which is substantially alike among all races of mankind. The negro, in spite of his name, is not black, but deep brown, and even this darkest hue does not appear at the beginning of life, for the new-born negro child is reddish-brown, soon becoming slaty-gray, and then darkening. Nor does the darkest tint ever extend over the negro's whole body, but his soles and palms are brown. ”

“ On the contrary, women of a dark complexion, who dress in such colours as we too frequently see them do, cause their skin to appear black, dull, and tanned. They ought, therefore, to avoid wearing linen or laces of too brilliant a white; they ought to avoid white robes, and rose-colour, or light-blue ribbons, which form too disagreeable a contrast with their complexions.
Fair women cannot be too careful to correct, by light colours, the paleness of their complexions; and dark women, by stronger colours, the somewhat yellow tint of their complexion. ”

“ In the nations of Southern Europe, such as Italians and Spaniards, the browner complexion to some extent hides this red, which among darker peoples in other quarters of the world ceases to be discernible. Thus the difference between light and dark races is well observed in their blushing, which is caused by the rush of hot red blood into the vessels near the surface of the body. The contrary effect, paleness, caused by retreat of blood from the surface, is in like manner masked by dark tints of skin. ”

“ The light colourings, as well as the dark, generally go together; i.e., a person having blond hair has also light eyes and a fair skin, and vice versa—in other words, the entire organism has either a greater or less accumulation of pigment in all its centres of pigmentation. Furthermore, these anthropological characteristics are accompanied by others of equal ethnical importance, such as the stature, the cephalic index, etc.; and all of them combine to determine an ethnic type in all its complex morphology. ”

“ In the dark skin the pigmentary matter tones down the too vivid red of the translucent blood, wherefore the brunette complexion appears more mellow and delicate in its tints than the Scandinavian blonde, in which a blush suggests a hectic flush, and its normal whiteness the pallor of ill-health or a lack of invigorating and beautifying sunshine. ”

“ Naturally I am inclined to a dark skin, and cannot but think that God knew what He was doing when He gave colored skins to people living in the tropics where clothes are a burden, that their dark complexions might take the place of clothes, and they be protectively colored.
On the same principle nature clothes animals and insects with the colors of their surroundings. Still, I think, human animals ought to get their color as well as their being in a legitimate way. ”

“ In fair individuals with blue eyes and a pink and white skin, the pigment seemed to be entirely wanting. In individuals with a brown skin, black hair, and a very dark iris, “not only the brain enveloped by its membranes assumes a deeper shade, but a layer of black matter, in every way comparable to that of the Negro, covers the protuberance, the pineal gland, and some other points of the nervous centres.” ”

“ The parts of the body usually bare, as the skin of the face and hands, are darker than others. In the same region, country-people are more tanned than town residents. In latitudes not far apart, the inhabitants of the same country vary in complexion in a measure perceptibly related to the intensity of solar light. In Europe three varieties of color in the skin are distinctly marked: olive-brown, with black hair, beard, and eyes; chestnut, with tawny beard and bluish eyes; blond, with fair, light beard and sky-blue eyes. White skins show more readily alterations occasioned by light and heat ”

“ There are some who paint themselves with a blackish pigment; their natural colour being neither black nor white, but similar to that of the inhabitants of the Canary islands; some paint themselves with white, some with red, or any other colour, either covering the whole body with it, or the whole face, or perhaps only the eyes, or the nose. They do not carry arms like our people, and do not even know what they are. ”

“ Little specks of coloring matter, or pigment, which lie in the outer layer of the skin. Even white skins contain a little pigment, they are not a pure white. A Chinaman’s skin has a little more of this pigment, so that it looks yellow; an Indian’s has still more; and a negro’s has most of all, making him black.
Sunlight can increase the amount of pigment in the skin. The people who live in the torrid zone have much darker skins than those who live where the days are short and cold. ”

“ For example, people whose ancestors, through countless ages, lived in the bright sunlight and tropical luxuriance of the warmer climes, have dark eyes, dark hair, and dark skin because nature found it necessary to supply an abundance of pigmentation in order to protect the delicate tissues of the body from injury by the actinic rays of the sun. The same soft luxuriance of their environment has made these people slow, easy-going, hateful of change, introspective, philosophical and religious. ”

“ He was not master of the rare arts that skins are subject to in these days. He knew artificial whiteness only when it was glaring and floury. This pearly paleness was exquisite, delicious; and in contrast the great dark eyes, lifted pansy-like for an instant and then down-drooped beneath those wonderful, long curling lashes, were almost startling in their beauty. The hair was simply arranged with a plain narrow band of black velvet around the white temples, and the soft loops of cloudy darkness drawn out on her cheeks in her own fantastic way. ”

“ The tint of the skin, of course, is largely a racial indication, but in certain respects, the tint, as well as the texture, is an index of health and vigor. The standard of beauty in complexion, whether light or dark, is that which goes with the full bloom of sexual vigor, when the human organism is at its perfect development for the perpetuation of the species. ”

“ During pregnancy this tendency to pigmentation reaches its climax. Pregnancy constantly gives rise to pigmentation of the face, the neck, the nipples, the abdomen, and this is especially marked in brunettes.
This association of pigmentation and sexual aptitudes has been recognized in the popular lore of some peoples. Thus the Sicilians, who admire brown skin and have no liking either for a fair skin or light hair, believe that a white woman is incapable of responding to love. It is the brown woman who feels love ”

“ Nature provides pigments of color to guard the skin against the inclemencies of sun and weather. Every modern man knows and 70has experienced the result of strong sun and wind in his own skin. “Tan” it is called, and sometimes, within a few weeks the color of a white man’s skin is transformed into a yellow or a dark brown. If the exposure continues, the color remains.
In the opinion of noted scientists, it is certain that the difference between the races as to color is merely skin deep. ”

“ The skin becomes sickly and corrupt, and of a dead leaden white hue, which strangely enough is supposed to be more beautiful than the rich rose-brown, delicately shaded into lighter tints in the less exposed parts, which it would wear if tanned by daily welcome of sun and wind. ”

“ There are some cases on record where emotional states have caused loss of pigment in the negro or other colored races, or in the hair, as when, in well-substantiated cases, people's hair has become white in a single night. In every case of pigmentary disturbance, then, the individual must be carefully studied and as far as possible all emotional disturbance must be eliminated. ”

“ At a low stage of culture each race likes its special 458characteristics in an exaggerated form,—a trait which would lead the more vigorous men to persistently select the darkest girls as wives, and thus cause their gradual predominance over the others: while the men, too, would, of course, inherit a darker tint from their mothers. But a still more important consideration is this, that, as Dr. Topinard points out, “Dark colour in the negro is a sign of health,”—naturally, since the darker the dermal pigment, the better are the nerves of temperature protected against the enervating solar rays. ”

“ The blond human being—man, woman or child—has the beauty of harmony; the hair plays off from the tones of the flesh, only a few degrees brighter or a few degrees darker. Contrast of colour there is, in the blue of the eyes, and in the red of cheek and lip, but there is no contrast of tone. The whole effect is that of much various colour and of equal tone. In the dark face there is hardly any colour and an almost complete opposition of tone. ”

“ It would seem as if the blackness is associated with the general thickening of the skin and is an accompaniment of the general organic adaptation of the negro to his hot malarious climate. The effects of sunburn vary with different races. It is with the races having intermediate pigmentation, such as the dark Europeans and the yellow peoples, that the effect is most noticeable. With the former the sun burns the skin uniformly, making them of the tint of mulattoes. ”

“ The colour of the human skin has always held an important place among physical criteria of race. Physiology explains colour as a consequence of climate and even diet. The pigment or colour- ing matter under the epidermis, or rather under the second or Malpighian skin, is not peculiar to the Negroid and other coloured races, but is common to all human beings. ”

“ Primitive man—the Andonites—had black eyes and a swarthy complexion, something of a cross between yellow and red. Melanin is a coloring substance which is found in the skins of all human beings. It is the original Andonic skin pigment. ”

“ Development being arrested at so immature a stage in the case of the Negro, the skin may take on the colour as an unavoidable consequence of its imperfect organization. It is favourable to this view, that Negro infants are not deeply black at first, but only acquire the full colour tint after exposure for some time to the atmosphere. Another consideration in its favour is that there is a likelihood of peculiarities of form and colour, since they are so coincident, depending on one set of phenomena. ”