On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead.

  • Whitehead, James, 1812-1885.
Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: On the transmission, from parent to offspring, of some forms of disease, and of morbid taints and tendencies / by James Whitehead. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/370 (page 3)
    ORIGIN OF RACES. 3 Biafra. When we go to the enumeration of particulars we find, in the first place, in the colour of the human races, no room for hesitation or doubt, as to the propriety of referring all the varieties Avhich are known to variation from one stock. The white and the black-haired, and the intermediate xan¬ thous races, find their counter-part and representative in most tribes of domestic animals. Even in the more minute and less obvious peculiarities of organization connected with the difiPerent complexions of mankind, the analysis still holds good. ^ The development of those peculiarities which serve to distinguish the different races of mankind from each other, commenced doubtless with their dispersion over the surface of the globe, and their subsequent isolation as indépendant communities. After a time, laws would be enacted and political and ethical codes instituted of a kind to meet the exigences of each particular state, suited to the genius of the people, to the preservation of their rights and privileges; influenced also by their geological resources, and, in some measure, by the customs and behaviour of contiguous tribes. Instances, in illustration, appear in the individuals detached from the line of the Jewish patriarchs, who, through a fertile and widely-spread genealogy, commencing with Ishmael, Esau, and others, were at length multiplied into vast and powerful communities, possessing, after a series of genera¬ tions, the characteristics of distinct races. That such results should accrue under the aforenamed influences, is every way accordant with the laws of human physiology. It is by no means unreasonable to suppose that races, now the most widely dissimilar, may owe their distinguishing characteristics to time and circumstances, and that, as the divergence has been constantly widening, so their approxi¬ mation may be supposed to have been much nearer in ages ^ Pritchai'd's Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. p. 372.