General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 3 (of 3)Bichat, Xavier
Science
General Anatomy, Applied to Physiology and Medicine, Vol. 3 (of 3)
Bichat, Xavier
Human anatomy; Human physiology
But in order to be convinced of the diversity of races, it is
sufficient to observe, 1st, that the teint of the skin is but one of
the characters which distinguish each race, and that many others are
always united to it. The nature and form of the hair, the thickness
of the lips and the nose, the width of the forehead, the degree of
inclination of the facial angle, the whole appearance of the face, &c.
are constant attributes which indicate a general modification in the
organization, and not merely a difference of the dermoid system. 2d.
White people become tawny in hot countries; but they never acquire the
teint of the people of the country. 3d. Removed to cold countries in
early age, or even born in them, the blacks always remain so; their
shade hardly changes at all from generation to generation. 4th. Colour
by no means follows temperature exactly; we see many varieties in the
shades of people who live under the same degree of latitude, &c.
Every thing proves then that the colour of the skin is but an insulated
attribute of the different human races, though it is that which is most
striking to our senses, and that we should not attach to it a greater
importance than to many others which are drawn from the stature, which
is oftentimes very small, as in the Laplanders, from the broad and
flat face, as in the Chinese, from the dimensions of the chest, of the
pelvis, the extremities, &c. It is from the differences of the whole,
and not from those of an insulated part, that the lines of demarcation
should be made which separate the races. The European face and forms
are in general the type with which we compare the exterior of the
other nations. The ugliness or beauty of the human races are, in our
way of considering it, measured by the distance which separates these
races from ours. Such is in fact the force of habit with us, that we
rarely judge in an absolute manner, and that every object which is much
removed from those to which we are accustomed, is disagreeable to us
and sometimes even disgusting.
Besides, the colouring matter of the cutaneous reticular body is more
interesting to the naturalist than to the physician. What should
particularly arrest the attention of the latter is the portion of the
capillary system exterior to the skin in which the fluids circulate.
In fact, besides the portion which is the seat of colour, there
is evidently another that the white fluids constantly pervade, in
which they are moved with more or less rapidity, and in which they
continually succeed each other. It is from this portion that the
exhalant pores arise which furnish the sweat; it is this vascular
net-work which is the seat of erysipelas and of all the cutaneous
eruptions that are foreign to the chorion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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