Abstract
A DECISIVE paper on the subject would have to be prepared elsewhere, but Hindostan presents an excellent field for amassing information with regard to the effects of an extraordinarily powerful sun on the human frame's exterior. In a very interesting article in NATURE for August 21 last (p. 401), “Why Tropical Man is Black,” the cause is set down to the nerves of the skin being one and all highly sensitive to light, the optic nerves being merely some of those of the epidermis highly specialised by long-inherited modification, and the necessity for placing over them a pigment which will absorb light. Otherwise the intense nerve vibrations from a light of double degree power would soon degrade the tissues of the individual and exhaust his vitality.
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FRASER, A. The Blackness of Tropical Man. Nature 31, 6–7 (1884). https://doi.org/10.1038/031006a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/031006a0
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