FOOTNOTES:
[47] Many authorities maintain that the normal relation between the index and ring finger is the reverse of that given above; abundant examples occur in favor of each of these views.
CHAPTER VI
THE SKIN AND THE PIGMENTS
Pigmentation and Cutaneous Apparatus.—The outer covering of the body possesses an importance that is not only physiological, as a defense of the living animal, but biological and ethnical as well. In fact, the covering of the body frequently constitutes a characteristic of the species, and we may say that it constitutes to a large extent the æsthetics of coloration, supplementing that of form. In the covering of the body there are in general certain appendages which include the double purpose of defense and attraction, as, for example, the scales of fishes, the quills of the porcupine, the marvellous plumage of certain birds, the furry coat of the ermine. Man, on the contrary, is almost completely deprived of any covering of the skin, and is conspicuous among all animals as the most defenseless and naked. Consequently, the characteristics of the skin itself, quite apart from any covering, assume in man a great ethnic importance, especially as regards his pigmentation. In fact, it is well known that the fundamental classifications of the human races due to Blumenbach and Linnaeus are based upon the cutaneous pigmentation (white, black, yellow races, etc.). This is because it is a recognised fact that the pigmentation is biologically associated with race, and hence inalterable and hereditary, in the same way, for example, as the cephalic index; although we must not forget the modifications of pigment through phenomena due to adaptation to environment. This would lead us into scientific discussions which would here be out of place, since they have no immediate importance to us as educators. It may suffice to indicate that the distribution of racial colour should not be studied in relation to temperature and the direction of the sun's rays, but rather in connection with the history of human emigration; because, while as a matter of fact it is true that there are races at the equator which are darker and races near the poles which are fairer, it is also true that the Esquimaux, for instance, are a dark race, while in Lybia there are types of ashen blond, which is the palest blond in the whole range of human pigmentation.
The pigment is distributed throughout the skin, the cutaneous appendages and the iris.
In the skin, the distribution is not uniform, there being some regions of the body that have more, and some that have less; it is localised in the Malpighian mucous layer, i.e., the granular, germinative layer of the epidermis, which rests directly upon the papillæ of the derma or corium.
The derma, being abundantly supplied with blood-vessels, if seen by itself would appear red; but this color, due to the blood, is concealed to a greater or less extent by the epidermis, according as the latter contains more or less pigment. In the iris of the eye and in the piliferous appendages of the skin, among which we must, from the anthropological point of view, give chief place to the hair of the head, the pigment tends to accumulate, producing a constantly deeper shade.
Pigmentation constitutes an eminently descriptive characteristic, and consequently, in all attempts to determine it, must be subject to all manner of oscillations in judgment on the part of the observer; yet, because it also constitutes an ethnical characteristic, it deserves to be determined with precision. To this end we have in anthropology chromatic charts, corresponding not only to the various shades of the skin, but also to those of the piliferous appendages and of the iris. They consist of a graduated series of colour-tones extending over the entire possible range of the real colours of pigmentation in human beings; and every gradation in tone has a corresponding number. When we wish to use the charts practically, for the purpose of determining accurately the precise degree of pigmentation of a given person's hair, we need only to compare the tone of the hair with the colours of the chart, and, having identified the right one, to note the corresponding number. For instance, we may record: "Pigmentation of hair = 34 Br. (i.e., No. 34 in Broca's table). Or, again, if we are making a more complex study of all the children in a certain school, we may say: "The chestnut tones (35, 42, 43 Br.) constitute 87 per cent., the remaining percentage consists of the blond shades (36, 37, 46 Br.). And in the case of the skin and the iris the procedure is analogous. By this means the investigation is objective and accurate.
As a rule, the three pigmentations are determined in accordance with a reciprocal correspondence. 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 this, as in all other anthropological data, it is necessary to determine the limits between which it may oscillate. In the races of mankind, the colour of the skin ranges from a black brown to a gray brown, to brick red, to yellow, and to white; but among the population of Italy, and among Europeans in general (excepting certain localised groups, like the Lapps, etc.), the variation is confined within the limits of the so-called white tones, that is, from brunette to a sallow white, a rosy white, or a florid red, with each of which tints there are special corresponding grades of pigmentation for hair and eyes, and also, on broad, general lines, different ethnical characteristics oscillating within our normal limits of stature and cephalic index.
All of which may be summarised in the following table:
| Pigmentation | Stature | Cephalic index | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skin | Hair | Iris | ||
| Brunette | Black | Black | Medium or low | Dolichocephalic, |
| Yellow-white Pink-white | Light chestnut & blond. | Chestnut and blue. | Medium or high | Brachycephalic |
| Florid red | Red | Gray | (Outside of ethnical characteristics: the red colour of the hair is abnormal) | |
in which we have also included the abnormal colour of red hair, which plays a part in the actual colour scale of Italian pigmentation: not, however, as a racial characteristic, but rather as a deviation.
In addition to the oscillation of limits, we should also study in any given population the geographic distribution of a definite anthropological datum. This must also be done in the case of the pigments. Among Livi's splendid charts, there is one regarding the distribution of the brunette type in Italy. From this it appears that the greatest prevalence of the brunette type is in Sardinia and Calabria, and that in general there is a prevalence of the dark types in the southern districts; while the lowest percentage of brunettes is found in Piedmont, Lombardy and Venetia, and in general the number of brunettes is less in northern and central Italy.
The relative distribution of other ethnical data should be noted, such as the stature and the cephalic index, in the corresponding charts.
By combining these results, we find that in the north of Italy the prevalent type is blond, brachycephalic, and of tall stature; while in the south it is a dark, dolichocephalic type, of low stature. This is what I succeeded in showing in my work upon the women of Latium, in which I sought to complete the details of these two ethnic types. In Latium there is a prevalence of the dark, dolichocephalic type of low stature, a type that is still almost pure at Castelli Romani; this type is fine, slender and delicate in formation, and corresponds to Sergi's Mediterranean stock, to which are due the great Egyptian and Græco-Roman civilisations. The other race is blond, tall and brachycephalic, and has only a scanty representation in southern Latium, but is prevalent in an almost pure form in the neighborhood of Orte. This type is much coarser and more massive in its formation, with a euriplastic skeleton, and corresponds to Sergi's Eurasian race that immigrated from the continent.
In general, we may say that it is foreordained in our biological destiny not only what form, but also what colouring we ought to attain in the course of our individual evolution, when we finally arrive at mature development.
The Pigments during Growth.—In the course of individual evolution, it is not only the form that becomes modified, but the pigments as well. We know, for example, that children are more blond than adults. Transformations in regard to the pigments occur, however, more especially at the period of puberty.
Pigmentation of the Hair.—The colour of the hair becomes darker in the course of growth, changing from light chestnut to dark, from blond to light chestnut, from dark to black, from light auburn to fiery red. Sometimes this darkening of the hair is accompanied by a change in tone (from blond to chestnut); at other times it consists in an intensification of the original colour through an increase of pigment, which fixes and defines a colour that was previously indefinite.
In children who were ill or ailing during their early years, in other words, weakly children (through denutrition, exhausting illnesses, overexertion), this phenomenon is imperfectly achieved, just as their growth as a whole is imperfectly achieved. The consequence is that these weaklings retain a paler and less decided pigmentation, which explains the fact that statistics show a greater proportion of frail, rachitic, tuberculous and mentally deficient persons among the blonds than among the brunettes; but it is among that class of blonds whose light colour represents an arrest of development (suppressed brunettes).
Social conditions also exert an influence upon the colour of the hair; a larger number of blonds and of lighter and more indefinite blonds are to be found in the schools for the poor than in those for the rich; also a larger number in country schools, where the poverty is greater, than in city schools. Consequently we may conclude that there are two classes of blonds: that which is associated with a racial type, and that which is the consequence of arrested development. The first type has a vivid, uniform and decisive colour tone, accompanied by physiological robustness; the second is indefinite in colour tone and lacks uniformity—for example, the more exposed parts of the body are paler, and the hair varies in tone, some locks showing greater intensity of colour than others. This is especially noticeable in frail young girls from the country, where the sun discolours the surface layer of hair. In this connection it should be remembered that in those geographical regions where the rays of the sun are most nearly perpendicular, the pigments are, on the contrary, darker and that the skin becomes bronzed under the ardent kiss of the sun. But while the sun intensifies the tints that are strong with life, it destroys those that are weak and moribund, just as it does in the case of lifeless fabrics, which become bleached out by the action of the solar light.
Accordingly the pigments give us an important test for judging the robustness of the body; the blonds who are the product of arrested development of brown tones that have not been attained because of weakness, are frail in health and physical resistance, which is the basis of the popular belief that vigorous wet-nurses must be brunettes.
As a matter of fact, in our own population of Latium the brunette type prevails over the blond by a percentage of 86 per cent.; and it may be that a blond Roman wet-nurse is a weakly creature, just as a Roman red wine is in all probability a white wine that has been coloured.
Pigmentation of the Iris.—In regard to the coloration of the eyes, a change often takes place at puberty which is the opposite to that already noted in regard to the hair: the eyes become more uniformly light; this happens in the majority of cases.
In the coloration of the eyes it is necessary to distinguish two factors, the uvea and the pigment.
The iris has a fundamental and uniform light colour (due to the uvea) which oscillates, according to the individual, between blue and greenish.
In this layer the pigment is deposited; it may be more or less intense in tone, shading from yellow to a dark maroon.
When the pigment is wanting or is very scant, the fundamental blue or greenish colour of the uvea is apparent.
In little children the pigment is distributed over the uvea in a manner by no means uniform, in little masses or spots that are usually of a mixed colour, so that the colour of the iris in infancy may be uncertain. At puberty a uniform distribution of the pigment already accumulated takes place; but rarely an intensification. Hence the colour becomes more decided, but not deeper, as Godin has recently succeeded in proving.
Pigmentation of the Skin.—In the colouring of the skin it is necessary to distinguish between that which is due to the blood and that which is due to the pigment.
The blood, whose colour shows transparently through the layers of the epidermis, produces the various pinkish tones.
The pigment, deposited in all races of mankind under the Malpighian layer, produces the various brownish tones. The quantity of cutaneous pigment is a constant racial factor—a hereditary factor. Nevertheless, in certain individuals, it may be influenced by external agents (sunshine, heat) which tend to cause it to vary; such alterations produce individual varieties, and also variations in coloration of the skin between the covered parts of the body and those exposed to the sun or to atmospheric action in general; these variations, one and all, are not hereditary.
At puberty the pigment is increased in certain portions of the body in connection with the generative functions which become established at that time. Besides this, the general pigmentation is intensified; children are whiter than adults.
The Skin and the Hair during the Evolution of the Organism.—In the case of the hair also, the pigment does not remain a constant quantity throughout the different periods of life. Grey hair is a normal sign of the decadence of an organism which has entered upon its involution. As is well known, the hair of the head, the beard, and in general all the piliferous appendages turn white, beginning in the regions where the hair is most abundant, i.e., on the head. In some men, however, the hairs of the beard are the first to turn grey; this is not perfectly normal, it is an inferior manner of growing old. A German proverb says, that he who works much with the head (the thinking class) turns grey first in his hair, and that he who works much with his mouth (the hearty eater) turns grey first in his beard.
The skin also gives manifest signs of decadence in the form of wrinkles. These serve up to a certain point as documentary evidence of the life which the individual has led and the high or low type to which he belongs. Just as in the case of grey hair, it is the class of thinkers who have the most wrinkles on their forehead; those who were given over to baser passions, such as called for labial rather than frontal expression, have on the contrary, more wrinkles around the mouth. We know how the peasant class has a veritable halo of wrinkles around the mouth.
Thinkers, on the contrary, have a single vertical furrow in the middle of the forehead: the line of thought. The transverse lines on the forehead are parallel and unconnected.
Faces with precocious wrinkles may be met with, even in children (denutrition, mental anxiety, dystrophic conditions); and conversely, there are faces which have been preserved unwrinkled up to an advanced age (especially in the case of women of the aristocracy, in whom it may happen that neither suffering nor mental effort has left its traces on their lives).
Pigmentation of the Hair.—This anthropological datum merits special consideration, since it plays so large a part in the æsthetics of the human body; and also preserves certain constant characteristics that serve to differentiate the races. In a study of the hair it is necessary to consider the quantity, the disposition and the form. Abundant, strong, sleek hair is in physiological relation to robustness of body. Thin hair, on the contrary, or hair that is easily extirpated at the slightest pull, or dry hair, indicate insufficient nutrition, which may also be connected with dystrophic or pathological conditions (hereditary syphilis, cretinism).
The normal disposition of the hair is characteristic, but it may assume a number of individual variations, as has recently been shown by Dr. Sergio Sergi, son of our mutual instructor Giuseppe Sergi (Sergio Sergi, Sulla disposizione dei capelli intorno alla fronte—"The disposition of the hair upon the forehead"—Acts of the Società di Antropologia, Vol. 13, No. 1).
The hair, after forming a single whorl or vortex, corresponding to the obelion, flows over the forehead in either two or three divisions, the lines of the parting (either lateral lines or a single central line) corresponding to the natural divisions of the flowing hair. Across the forehead the hair ceases at the line of the roots, which crowns the face cornice-like; it is a sinuous line and rises at the sides in two points, corresponding to the natural partings of the hair. The hair stops normally at the boundary-line of the forehead, which together with the face forms the visage, leaving bare that part which in man corresponds to that portion of the frontal bone that rises erect above the orbital arches, i.e., the human portion of the forehead.
The form of the hair is an ethnical characteristic. Among our European populations the extreme forms are wanting, namely, smooth hair (stiff, coarse, sparse hair peculiar to the red and yellow races, such as the American Indian, Esquinaux, Samoyed and Chinese), and kinky hair (wooly hair, curling in fine, close spirals, such as is found in all its variations among the Australians and the African negroes). Consequently, we cannot use the words smooth or kinky for the purpose of qualifying the forms of hair found in our populations.
We may, however, meet with straight hair (not smooth), or curly hair (not kinky). In addition to these forms, which among us represent the extremes, there are also two other forms—namely, wavy hair (in ample curves) and spiral hair (forming much narrower curves, the so-called ringlets). Corresponding to these various qualities of hair, there are essential differences in the physical structure of the stem or shaft of the hair itself. If we make transverse sections of hair and examine them under the microscope, we find that the resulting geometrical figures are not all equal: the forms of the sections oscillate between rounded and ellipsoidal forms. Furthermore, there are races in which we may find hair having a circular section (smooth hair) and there are others in which we may find, on the contrary, an extremely elongated elliptical section (kinky hair); in the first case the hair is a long, bristly cylinder; in the second, it is a ribbon with a tendency to roll up.
Fig. 130.
In general, the straighter the hair is, the nearer its cross-section approaches a perfect circle; and the more curly it is, the nearer its cross-section approaches an elongated ellipse. The accompanying examples are drawn from the results of my own study of the women of Latium; they represent five microscopic preparations. The figure in the middle (No. 3) represents straight hair; the two figures, No. 1 and 5, are from curly hair; No. 2 is wavy hair, and No. 4, close-curled hair, or ringlets. Thus we see how widely the sections of hair differ according to the relative degree of curliness; and conversely, how identical the two sections, Nos. 1 and 5 are, both of them taken from equally curly hair, although from different heads. Straight hair has an almost circular section, although, slightly elliptical; this proves that really straight hair does not exist; in fact, even when it attains the maximum degree of smoothness, it retains a tendency to curl, which is shown, if in no other way, by the readiness with which it acquires a waviness, if habitually kept braided. There is no other section so perfectly circular as that of the red races, thus demonstrating the bristle-like rigidity of the smooth type of hair. Wavy hair is that which, in the form of its section, approaches most nearly to straight hair; it is a slightly elongated ellipse (No. 2).
Anomalies relating to the Pigment, the Skin and the Piliferous Appendages: Pigment and Skin.—There are certain congenital anomalies of the skin, occasionally to be met with, among which I make note of the following principal ones:
a. Anomalies due to Hypertrophy of the Pigment and the Corium: Ichthyosis.—The surface of the skin presents large, raised, irregular patches of various dark colours tending to maroon.
b. Anomalies due to Hypertrophy of the Pigment:
- Nævi Materni: dark isolated spots (moles, birth-marks).
- Freckles: small, light brown spots, no larger than the head of a pin, scattered over the body, principally on the chest and face.
- Melanosis: the entire skin has a dark appearance, similar to that of the lower races of mankind, but especially on the face and hands.
c. Anomalies due to Atrophy of the Pigment. Albinism.—The skin presents an appearance of milky whiteness; even the hair is white, and the iris of the eye is red.
Wrinkles.—The wrinkles of the face are deserving of attention, as being a detail of noteworthy importance. In regard to wrinkles, two points should be noted; a. precocity; b. anomalies.
a. Precocity of Wrinkles.—This is an indication of rapid involution, and is frequently met with in degenerates. Idiotic children often show a flabby, shrivelled skin, overstrewn with a multitude of wrinkles that give them the aspect of little old men.
b. Anomalies: the following are to be specially noted:
- Transverse wrinkles on the nose, frequent in flat-nosed idiots.
- Wrinkles on the forehead; in normal persons these are interrupted and broken, they are not quite parallel, nor perfectly horizontal, nor very deep.
In degenerates it is frequently noticed that the wrinkles on the forehead form one continuous horizontal line, extending completely across it; sometimes it is so deep that it seems to divide the forehead transversely into two parts. The various wrinkles, straight and unbroken, are quite parallel.
3. The zygomatic (cheek-bone) wrinkles and the wrinkles around the mouth are extremely deep in mentally defective adult and aged persons, and also in criminals, whose facial expression is especially active in the region of the nose and mouth, which constitute the least contemplative portion of the face.
Anomalies of the Hair.—1. Quantity.—The quantity of hair may be excessive—polytrichia, a mark of degeneration easily to be met with among delinquents and prostitutes; or there may be a scarcity of hair—atrichia, among neuropaths, feeble-minded and cretins. Sometimes, precocious baldness occurs, as a result of defective nutrition of the skin.
Fig. 131.—Showing various types of the line of roots of the hair.
2. Disposition.—We should note: a. the line of roots of the hair; b. the vortices.
a. Line of Roots.—This may be situated too far down upon the forehead, in which case it gives a false impression of a low forehead, or too far back, in which case it gives a false impression of a high forehead.
Note in addition the form of the line of roots; it ought to be, as we have already said, sinuous; sometimes, on the contrary, this line is straight, and forms a uniform curve, without sinuosity, across the forehead (imbeciles); at other times it descends in a peak at the middle point of the forehead.
b. Vortices.—Normally, there ought to be one central whorl or vortex over the sinciput.
Abnormally it may happen:
That the vortex is misplaced—above, below or laterally;
That the vortex is double;
That there are also vortices along the frontal line of roots, or near this line.
3. Form.—It sometimes happens that we find in degenerates forms of hair that are normal in inferior races, i.e., smooth hair, or kinky, wooly hair.
Grey Hair.—Sometimes in the case of degenerates or those suffering from dystrophy, a precocious greyness occurs (grey-haired young men, children with white hair); or a partial congenital greyness (clumps of white hair). No form of grey hair, however, should be confused with albinism.
Anomalies relating to the Eyebrows and the Beard. The Eyebrows.—Various anomalies may occur, in respect to the quantity of hair, and the form of the eyebrows.
The hairs may be too abundant or too scanty.
The form may be oblique, in degenerate mongoloid types.
A notable anomaly consists in a union of the eyebrows, which meet and form an unbroken line across the region of the glabella. The "united eyebrows" constitute a grave sign of degeneration, and are popularly regarded in Italy as a mark of the "jettatura" or "evil eye."
Beard.—It may be very thick or very thin. Too thick a beard is important, especially if the hairs are also abundant on the cheeks and even on the forehead, a characteristic that is frequently accompanied by an abundant growth of hair over the entire body (general hypertrichosis).
A thin beard and moustache may constitute a normal characteristic in certain races, such as the Kaffirs and other African negro tribes; as also in the Chinese. In our own race, on the contrary, it is an abnormal characteristic, which has been interpreted as a sexual inversion (feminism) and is met with frequently among thieves.