Evening star., 1904-01-01
DWARFE AND PYGMIES
sKELEToN OF LrTTLE PEoPLH
FOUND IN NECRoPoLL
1Aces Of Diminutaye Mem Net With In
Asia and Africa-Ropular Myths
Based on Fact.

A0a ana oA111co-foputar II S08
Based on Fact.
From the Courier des Etats Unis.
Legends are useful, because sometimes
they put us on the track of authentic facts.
In the Homeric period reference was made
to the race OF pygmies. and yet nobody be-.
lieved In their existence. It was only in
comparatively modern times that ignorance
had to Yield to evidence when races Of
pygmies were found in Africa and in Asia.
In Europe popular myths gave an i'm
portant role to dwarfs and pygmies in
England Scotland and Ireland. In Dem
mark they were called Kobold; in Germany.
Niebelung; and they were referred to In
Russia and even In France as IL the
legends reflected the distant recollection of
populations Of little people who really lived
in far-or ages. II Is now proved conclu-
founded in fact. It links the tradition to
Its starting point. The race OF little people
existed almost everywhere.
Numerous skeletons of dwarfs are found
In Egyptian necropoli, In Greek and Roman
statuary. in the frescoes OF Pompeii and in
some ornamental ceramic vases Of Roman
Gaul. Numerous skeletons OF pygmies,
mingled with those of men Of ordinary
prehistoric sepulchres. We should also
mention the skeletons OF pygmies found in
the sepulchres of the neolithic period at the
time OF the excavations in Switzerland
under the direction Of Miesch and Kohl
mann. Then came the discoveries of M.
Manourbrier and of Vacher de Papogue in
Herault. and In the cases Of the Cevennes,
and more recently those of M. Thilemus in
Siberia.
Romans and slavs.
Tf tc carfoio that tboro aviotad ra~oofn
ages a race Of dwarfs which remained as
distinct race for q long time. Traces of
them are found among the Romans and the
slavs. According to Gulturam of Colmar,
these races of dwarfs peopled Switzerland
and the whole Of lower Alsace. while
Mtesch and Kollmann claim that they were
the primitive people Of Europe. The asser-
ton Is also made that inasmuch as traces
OF pygmies are found In many parts Of the
world. they probably were the advance
guard Of the present variety Of the human
race. just as in the case Of animals the big
came from the little. 1t was toward the
close of the ninth century that all trace Of
them as COLLECTIVELY was lost. Neverthe-
less. after that period isolated specimens
OF them were found from time to time par
ticularly in the different courts Of Europe.
where they were employed as testers.
At the present time, as everybody knows,
dwarfs still exist but there are dwarfs and
dwarfs. Dwarfisn, or the diminution more
or less remarkable of the ordinary stature.
has been Of late the subject of important
Investigation. There Is evidently patho-
logical dwarf. That type has an ensemble
apart for himself. Prof. Poncet Of the Uni
versity of Lyons and M Rene Leriche in a
Academy of Msdicine, entitled "Dwarfs OF
the Present Time and Dwarfs of Long
Ago. have just brought up tho question
whether among the pathological dwarfs
there have not often been erroneously in
cluded an important category of dwarfs
that should be separated from them, be-
cause they belong to nothing in pathology.
and because in reality they are only very
little men. remnants of the ancient race Of
dwarfs. These isolated specimens come
down from prehistoric times. They present
the popularity Of being an clinical attri-
butte and consequently hereditary, while
the only dwarfs considered in medical lit
erature are creatures reduced in all their
proportions and whose fundamental char
acter Is their happiness for reproduction.
Ancestral Dwarfsm.
From this category. M. Poncet and M.
Leriche separate the ancestral dwarfism
which is determined by the atavic recall Of
the ancient type of pygmies. a type which
disappeared in our regions about the middle
of the Christian era. M. Poncet and M.
Leriche base their opinion upon two Gu
rious observations They made a study of
two creatures. brother and sister. born in
a little village on the banks of the river
Ain. They are both fine specimens of pyg-
mics. Their stature Is feet liz inches and
feet 10 inches. Their father and grand
father were of small stature, each standing
feet g. They were Intelligent strong and
muscular. Their mother is still living. She
Is forty-nine years DID, and In height meas
ures feet inches. Her third child. a
young woman of twenty-six summers. is
slightly above the average female stature
She Is feet 8 inches Pierre, the eldest
son. is thirty-four years old His intellf-
gence fs normal. He has the head and body
OF the average man There is nothing par
ucular about him except the shortness of
his limbs. His bones are large, but not de-
formed. His hands are small, and his mus
cles are powerful He can hold with ease
arm fully extended. His sister is twenty
eight years old, very intelligent, and per-
fectly satisfied with her small stature Her
head Is normal. but her limbs, especially
ninety-four pounds and has no organic de-
feet.
M. Poncet and M. Leriche claim that
these two specimens are genuine dwarfs,
that Is to say, dwarfs by heredity and not
pathological dwarfs. The specimens de-
scribed above adhere admirably in their
anatomical constitution to the descriptions
of the pygmies Of old. Their health ia ev
cellent and their physical development per-
feet All idea Of morbid pathogeny must
be rejected; they must be treated as spe-
cial variety of the human species, or at
least as marked variation Of the human
type.
If these dwarfs are rarities 1t is probably
because there Is constant advancement OF
the human race toward higher type, with
the progressive elevation of the stature
Little by little the dwarf type fades away:
and. no doubt, it will finally disappear com
pletely.
In word. judging by their frames. by
their physical characters, by the heredity
OF their low stature and by the reproduce
t1on of the dwarf through several genera
tfons. 1t appears probable that the two
cases studied by M. Poncet and M, Leriche
have an ancestral origin and present the
formerly existed on French soil: that ,s fo
say, that some dwarfs living today NAV
actually be the descendants of the nypnies
of old. ~ i'ieS