WILLIAM F. OSGOOD, Professor of Mathematics, Harvard University. COMPLEXION, the term generally used to signify the special color or hue of a person's skin. The human skin, till the time of pighi, was supposed to consist only of two parts — the epidermis or outer skin, and the cuts or true sldn; but that anatomist, about the middle of the 17th century, discovered between these a cellular texture, soft and gelatinous, to which the names of rete mucosum, rete Malpighi, or Malpighian tissue, have been given. He dem onstrated the existence of this membrane at first in the tongue and in the inner parts of the hands and feet; but by his subsequent labors, and also by those of Ruysch and other anato mists, it was proved to exist, between the epidermis and cutis, in all parts of the human body. Malpighi, on the discovery of this mem brane, offered a conjecture respecting the cause of the color of negroes. He supposed that this membrane contained a juice or fluid of a black color, from which their blackness arose. The actual existence of a black pigment has been since ascertained. The rete mucosum is of very different colors in different nations; and the difference of its color so completely agrees with the difference of their somplexions, that there can be no doubt that it is the sole, or, at least, the principal seat of the color of the human complexion. Its thickness varies in different parts of the body; and the depth of its color, for the most part, is in proportion to its thick ness. It is now, however, not regarded as al together a distinct tissue, being considered rather as the innermost and newest layer of the epidermis or cuticle. The black color of the negroes is destroyed by whatever destroys the Tete mucosum, as wounds, burns, etc.; the scar remaining white ever afterward. The greatest contrast in complexion is between the fair white peoples of northern Europe and the ebony-colored negro of Africa.
The nature and color of the hair seem closely connected with the complexion. In proportion to the thinness of the skin and the fairness of the complexion the hair is soft, fine and of a white color; this observation holds good not only in the great varieties of the human race, but also in albinos. Next to them in fairness of complexion is the Teutonic race, the ?utile coma. (fair locks) of whom were a distinguish ing characteristic even in the time of the Romans. The Celtic people are not so fair as the Teutonic, and their hair is darker and less inclined to curl; but it is perhaps more difficult than in the case of the Teutons to be sure of unmixed blood. But though the color of the hair is evidently connected with the complex ion, yet its tendency to curl does not appear to be so. Many brown-comple3uon Celts have
curled hair; the Mongolian and American races, of a much darker complexion, have hair of a darker color, but long and straight Among that portion of the Malay race which inhabits some of the South Sea Islands, soft and curled hair is said to be met with. The color of the eye is also connected with the complexion. In the African, Professor Sommering remarks that the white of the eye is not so resplendently white as in Europeans, but rather of a yellowish brown, something similar to what occurs in the jaun dice. The iris in the negroes, in general, is of a very dark color; but the iris in the Kongo negro is said to be frequently of a bluish tinge. The Teutonic tribes are not more distinguished by their fair complexion than by their blue eyes, oculi, while the iris of the darker colored Finn is brown, and that of the still darker Laplander black. The color of the eyes also follows, in a great degree, in its changes, the variations produced by age in the complex ion. .The most singular class of people in point of complexion are the albinos, but albi noism is not confined to the human race. An intermediate complexion is produced where children are born from parents of different races. If the offspring of the darkest African and the fairest European intermarry succes sively with Europeans, in the fourth generation they become white; when the circumstances are reversed, the result is reversed also. Along with the successive changes of complexion is also produced a change in the nature and color of the hair; though, in some instances, the woolly hair remains when the complodon has become nearly as fair as that of brown people in Europe. It does not, however, always hap pen that the offspring is of the intermediate color between that of the respective races to which the father and mother belong; it sometimes resembles one parent only, while perhaps, in the second or third generation, the color of the other parent malces its appearance. An instance has been given of a negress who had twins by an Englishman: one was perfectly black; its hair was short, woolly and curled; the other was white, vvith hair resembling that of a European. In another case the child of a black man and an English woman was quite black; and still more remarkable : a black married a white woman, who bore him a daughter, re sembling the mother in features, and as fair in all respects, except that the right buttock and thigh were as black as the father's.