The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-21
COLOR OF NEGRO RABIES.


 A French Physicians Inquiry Into the
 Successive Tints They Show After
 Birth.
 Paris, Jan. 22.-Several years ago pr. Farabeuf, professor of histology at the Faculty of Medicine, stated in public lecture that negro babies at the time of birth were of exactly the same color as white babies, and that they showed signs of color only after an interval, usually of several days, but often ex- tending to many weeks; finally, that the skin never attained it's darkest tint until the age of puberty.
 This assertion caused a good deal of discussion at the time. One physician, Dr. Florain, who had spent some years in Africa, denied it emphatically. He declared that the children of black par ents were invariably born black, and that they were as black at the age of two months as they ever would be. To this impeachment Dr. Farabeuf made single response: Black babies are born white."
 Last summer there was on exhibition at the Champ de Mars Soudanese village, the colony of which numbered | several hundred persons as black as ever born. Another investigator, Dr.. Collignon, saw there an opportunity to 1 settle the controversy. He set to work scientifically, using the Broca chromat- ic scale to verify his tints. This scale l is made up of thirty-f four gradations, 1 the gamut beginning with cream white and ending with ebon black, the inter- ening shades giving all the grades that l one could obtain, say, by pouring milk | into cup of black coffee. The first case that Dr. Collignon had a chance at was the birth of boy on Sept. 19. The parents were coal black
 | q arrived at the moment of birth" :" says Dr. Collignon. Armed with my scale, I examined the child the instant it had been washed. Its skin was of a very light pink, somewhat lighter than the No. "A of Broca. Within a very short time the skin was suffused with a | deeper tinge, which gradually became a | delicate lilac. Certain parts of the body were darker, but, on the other hand, the feet and hands were of a | beautiful rosy tinge. The hair was very fine and abundant, not curly and, ] perhaps, three centimetres in length. "The next day saw the child again, | and it was perceptibly darker; the l hands and feet were reddish. Ten days l later, the main tint of the body corre- sponded to No 29 of the Broca scale, which is that of a light-tanned leather; | the extremities were brick-red. The | baby shortly fell i'll, and was taken to | the hospital. saw it again when it was fifteen days old, and by that time it's color had deepened to chocolate" l In the scond case Dr. Collignon did not see the newborn child until twelve | hours after birth, when it was the color | of chamois skin. The third and fourth cases were practically like the first. In subsequent cases the pecularities of the ] first were confirmed; from all of which data the investigator felt justified in l saying: 334i
 'The negro baby comes into the world tender pink color; the second day it is lilac; ten days afterward it is the color of tanned leather, and at | fifteen days it is chocolate The hu- | uldu eplueIIIllS, OI outer layer Ol SKILL is composed of three films superim- posed one upon the other, and holding between them, in the case of the negro | the coloring matter which makes him brown or black. This pigment is semi fluid or in the form of fine granula- tions; in the Indian it is red, and in the | Mongolian yellow. F'reckles are made of this pigment. It is influenced not only by sun and by climate, but by cer- tain maladies, and the negro changes ir tint just as the white person does."- New York Sun.