ALBI'NOS, a word of Portuguese origin, by which the Portuguese voyagers denominated the white negroes whom they found on the coast of Africa. These negroes were also termed lee ehiopra—n term signifying white negroes. Both names are now used, but the former popularly, to designate individuals who exhibit characters similar to those observed in the white negroes, among whatever race or in whatever country the variety may arise.
These singular beings are distinguished from other individuals of the human race by remarkable characters, which are invariably the same among whatever people or under whatever external eirctunstanees the variety is found. Their most striking peculiarities consist in the colour of their skin and in that of their hair and eyes.
Their skin is of a pearly whiteness, without any admixture whatever of a pink or a Drown tint. In the snow-white skin of the fairest European woman there is always some tint of a pink or brown colour, led in the Albinos the skin is wholly destitute of either tinge, amp is of a dull pearly whiteness. It is often not soft and smooth in propor tion to its whiteness, as is generally the case with the blonds of the European race ; but, on the contrary, is rough, dry, and berth.
The whiteness of the hair always corresponds to the whiteness of the skin. Not only the hair of the head, but also that of the eyebrows, eyelashes, beard, and even the soft down that covers the external surface of the body, has the same unnatural whiteness.
With this whiteness of the skin and hair is connected a still more striking peculiarity, namely, a redness of the eyes, That part of the eye called the iris is of a pale rise colour, while the pupil is intensely red : in n word, the eye is exactly similar to tlmt of many forms of white animals, as the white rabbit, rat, mouse, &c.
This peculiarity depends upon the absence of certain cells in the body, called pigment-cells, which, wherever present, give a more or lees dark colour to the surface on which they are developed. It is the formation of these cells in the skin and hair, and in the interior of the eye, that gives the various colours to these paste of the body ; and when these cells are absent they present the appearances observed in Albinos. In the skin the part which secretes these cells is the upper surface of the (eis, or true skin. They are mixed, however, with varying proportions of colourless cella. These cells together constitute, when they lie flat upon the surface of the body, the scarf-skin. The cells which have not yet become hardened were supposed to form a soft layer, which was called the rein Intwontm, or mucous layer. It is in the black races of mankind that the pigment cells most abound, and just in proportion as the skin is fair do we find them deficient in quantity or less dark in colour : but in the fairest races these pigment-cells are found. In the same manner their
presence in the hair produces the various shades of colour observed in this appendage of the skin, and they may be very numerous in the hair and not so in the skin generally. The eyt requiring for its function a dark chamber, has developed in its interior a large quantity of pigment-cells, constituting the pigmenium nigrlon of its interior membranes. What is true of man is also true of the lower animals, and the colour of their skin and hair depends on these peculiar cella. • The anatomical condition of Albinism is the absence of the In the complete Albinos they are everywhere absent from the skin, the hair, and the eyes. It is this which gives the unnatural whiteness to the skin and the hair, and the redness to the eyes; tide latter phenomenon resulting from the delicate blood vessels reflecting the colour of the blood in them, an appearance which is entirely absent when the pigment-cells are deposited as usual.
On the other hand it appears that there is a tendency in some animal', which have naturally only a few pigment-cells to develop them in greater number than usual, az WO see in the occasional presence of black sheep in a flock. Black varieties and white varieties, with a mixture of the two colours, are not at all uncommon amongst our domesticated animals. Of the causes which produce this peculiar affection of the organs in question we are ignorant; and the speculations of Iluffon on this subject afford a striking example of the absurdities into which men, even of acute minds, fall when they substitute conjecture for investigation, or deem it consistent with the spirit of philosophy to place trust in fancy, when they are without knowledge. Thus, assuming that white is the primitive colour of nature, he says, that this colour may be varied by climate, food, and manners, to yellow, brown, or black ; that these colours may, under certain enesumstances, return to the primitive colour, but so much altered, that it has no resemblance to the original whiteness, became it has been adulterated by the causes that have been assigned. Nature, he tells in her most perfect exertions, made men white ; and this same Nature, after suffering every passible change, still renders them white; but the natural or specific whiteness is very different from the individual or accidental. It is useful, occasionally, to recur to what was formerly considered, and is still sometimes considered, as an explanation of the phenomena of nature.