Pigmentation and Cancer

Abstract

DOES the absence of skin pigment predispose white men to cancer? This question has been answered in the affirmative in a paper¹ which has attracted some attention. The author, Dr. Watkins-Pitchford, adduces instances of the inverse ratio obtaining between the degree of pigmentation of the skin and of the body cavity, and explains that the external and internal pigmentations protect the tissues from excessive “irradiation” by actinic rays, of which the influence is assumed to be highly inimical to the life of the individual. More weight would have attached to his observations, in whatever bearing they have upon cancer, had the thickness of the body wall been considered in relation to the degree of internal pigmentation and the slight penetrating, powers of many of the rays loosely called actinic.