Worcester morning daily spy., 1898-02-13
COLOR oF NEGRO BABIES.

A communication to the New York
Sun from Paris says:
Several years ago DR. Farabeuf, pro-
fessor Of histology at the Faculty of
Medicine, stated in a 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 extending to
many weeks; finally that the skin new
er attained its darkest tint until the
age of puberty.
This assertion caused a great 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
erits 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 a
single response: "BlaclS babies are born
white"
Last summer there was on exhibition
at the Champ de Mars a Soudanese viii
lage, the colony Of which numbered sew
eral hundred persons as black as ever
born Another investigator, Dr.. Collig-
non, saw there an opportunity to settle
the controversy. He set to work scien-
tifically. using the Broca chromatic scale
to verify his tints This scale is made
up Of 81 gradations, the gamut begin
ming with cream white and ending with
ebon black, the intervening shades CIV
| ing all the grades that one could obtain,
saw nv pouring milk into a cup of black
coffee. The first case that DR.. Colfgnon
had a cnance at was the birth of boy
on Sept. 10. The parents were coal
black
saws DR.. Collignon. Armed with my
| scale. I examined the child the instant
| IL had been washed. IT'S 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. Certainly parts of the
body were darker, but, on the other
hand. hand the feet and hands were of a
beautiful rosy tinge. The hair was very
fine and abundant, not curly, and, per
haps. three centimetres in length.
| ''The next day saw the child again,
| and it was perceptibly darker; the
hands and feet were reddish. Ten days
later the main tint of the body cores
ponded to No. 30 of the Broca scale
which is that Of light tanned ieatner' me-
| the extremeties were brick red. The
| baby shortly fell i'll and was taken to
the hospital 1 saw it again when it was
Is DAYS old, and by that time it's color
| had deepened to chocolate"
| In the second case DR.. Collignon did
| not see the newborn child until Il
hours after birth, when 1t was the colol
! of chamois skin The third and fourth
| cases were practically like the first: In
| subsequent cases the peculiarities OF the
Hrst we're confirmed; from all Of which
| data the investigator felt justified In
| saying:
':The negro baby comes into the woric
a tender pink color; the second day 1t Is
! lilac; ten days afterward it is the color
of tanned leather, and at fifteen days II
| is chocolate. The human epidermis, OF
| outer layer Of skin, is composed OF three
/ films superimposed one upon the other
and holding between them, in the case
/ of the negro, the coloring matter which
| makes him brown or black. This pig
ment is semi-fuid or in the form of fine
granulations; In the Indian 1t is red
| and IN the Mongolian yellow. Freckle'
are made of this pigment. It is infiu:
| enced not only by sun and by climate
| but by certain maladies. and the negro
changes in tint just as the white per
] son does"