Abstract
Revue d'Anthropologie, troisieme série, tome 1, 1886, Paris. —On the colour of the eyes and hair in different parts of France, by M. Topinard. This paper will form the introduction to a comprehensive work, in which the author proposes to consider the various methods followed in other countries in collecting the necessary data for determining the racial significance of these physical characteristics. In France, where good charts of stature have been drawn up for the several departments, no statistical observations have been made in regard to the colour of the skin, eyes, and hair. This M. Topinard considers at length, both in its significance as a racial characteristic, and in regard to the modifications which it undergoes at various ages, and from different local surroundings. In considering the more or less typical series of colour, the writer draws attention to the extreme rarity in Europe of greenish eyes. In Germany, Prof. Virchow states that, among 6,000,000 persons, green eyes were noted only in six cases. Chinese annals record, however, that green eyes are met with in parts of Asia; and Pallas notes a similar fact in regard to Siberia. In concluding his exhaustive résumé of what has been done in other countries, M. Topinard states that he has addressed letters to the members of the French Association for the Promotion of Science, begging their cooperation in the collection of the necessary data for drawing up statistical tables of the relative proportion of the different shades of colour of the eyes and hair in various parts of France.—Illyrian anthropology, by Dr. R. Zampa. The author, who is well known for his able contributions to the ethnography of Italy, has turned his attention to the anthropological character of the Illyrian races, who occupied the South Danubian and other eastern trans-Alpine lands, to which tradition points as the original home of the earliest settlers of the Adriatic provinces of central and lower Italy. Dr. Zampa denies that the Illyrians were ever a homogeneous race, and he points out that while those of the north retained through the ages the character of savage marauders and pirates, the South Illyrians, four centuries B.C., had been thoroughly amalgamated with the Macedonian and Epirote nations, adopting the pre-Hellenic form of speech of those peoples, which still lingers in the spoken tongue of the modern Albanians. After the incursions of Finns and Slavs into the Balkan and Danube territories, in the sixth and seventh centuries, the remnant of Illyrian and other primitive races that escaped extermination were comprised under the general name of Albanians; and Dr. Zampa believes that in the mountainous districts of Scutari we find the purest representatives of the ancient Albanian race. In this region, therefore, he has sought the data necessary for the elaboration of the comparative anthropological researches of the ethnic relations and differences existing between the Italian and other branches of the Albanian peoples. The author gives at length the results of his measurements of several series of crania obtained in Dalmatia, comparing them with those taken from living subjects; and although it cannot be said that his researches decide the question whence the Albanian Italians derive their origin, they throw important light on the early history of the primitive races pf the Balkan Peninsula, and on their gradual amalgamation with the numerous invaders and alien settlers who, in the course of ages, have occupied the lands of the ancient Illyrians.—On trephining, as practised in Montenegro, by M. Védrènes. The question of prehistoric trepanning, which first excited attention about ten years ago, has led to the consideration of the hitherto almost unnoticed fact that cranial trephining has been practised in Europe from the most remote ages to the present day. Indeed, according to M. Védrènes, the operation is also of frequent occurrence among the natives of Aurès, in Algiers, where it is held in high esteem as being both safe and beneficial. Here it is generally used to arrest the acute pains which are frequently experienced after severe injuries to the head; a portion of bone, about a centimetre in diameter, being cut out to admit of the introduction of a sponge for the removal of extravasated blood. A precisely similar operation is common in Montenegro, where, as at Aurès, it is performed by the members of certain families, amongst whom the profession of trephining has flourished for ages, and been respected as an hereditary distinction transmissible from father to son. The author draws attention to the curious circumstance that the practice of trephining and implicit faith in its efficacy have kept their ground, not merely in the semi-barbarous populations of Algiers and the Balkan mountain districts, but even among the miners of Cornwall, who have continued, to our own times, to regard this operation as the only adequate mode of treatment in various injuries to the head.—Contribution to the history of anomalies of the muscles, by M. Ledouble. The author considers that, while the pyramidalis abdomilis, peroneus, palmaris, plantaris, and psoas parvus are more usually absent than any of the other muscles, the last-named is so frequently missing, that some writers have even assumed that its presence was abnormal. It is more frequent in women than in men; but for this peculiarity, as well as for the variations observable in the mode of insertion of psoas magnus and parvus, the author does not attempt to offer any explanation; his paper giving simply the result of his own observations of muscular anomalies in the lower animals, as well as in man.
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Scientific Serials . Nature 35, 187–188 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/035187a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035187a0