The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitantsMarsden, William
History
The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants
Marsden, William
Natural history -- Indonesia -- Sumatra; Sumatra (Indonesia)
bile prevailing in the constitutions of each. But I fear such a
hypothesis would not stand the test of experiment, as it might be
expected to follow that, upon dissection, the contents of a negro's
gall-bladder, or at least the extravasated bile, should uniformly be
found black. Persons skilled in anatomy will determine whether it is
possible that the qualities of any animal secretion can so far affect the
frame as to render their consequences liable to be transmitted to
posterity in their full force.*
(*Footnote. In an Essay on the Causes of the Variety of Complexion and
Figure in the Human Species published at Philadelphia in 1787 the
permanent effect of the bilious secretion in determining the colour is
strongly insisted upon.)
The small size of the inhabitants, and especially of the women, may be in
some measure owing to the early communication between the sexes; though,
as the inclinations which lead to this intercourse are prompted here by
nature sooner than in cold climates, it is not unfair to suppose that,
being proportioned to the period of maturity, this is also sooner
attained, and consequently that the earlier cessation of growth of these
people is agreeable to the laws of their constitution, and not occasioned
by a premature and irregular appetite.
Persons of superior rank encourage the growth of their hand-nails,
particularly those of the fore and little fingers, to an extraordinary
length; frequently tingeing them red with the expressed juice of a shrub
which they call inei, the henna of the Arabians; as they do the nails of
their feet also, to which, being always uncovered, they pay as much
attention as to their hands. The hands of the natives, and even of the
halfbreed, are always cold to the touch; which I cannot account for
otherwise than by a supposition that, from the less degree of elasticity
in the solids occasioned by the heat of the climate, the internal action
of the body by which the fluids are put in motion is less vigorous, the
circulation is proportionably languid, and of course the diminished
effect is most perceptible in the extremities, and a coldness there is
the natural consequence.
HILL PEOPLE SUBJECT TO WENS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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