Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/740

668 lungs at once he is transferred to that part of the earth. It is not inconceivable that this may indeed serve as a partial explanation, but how, then, can we account for the equally open nostril of the Turanian stock so immune from consumption? Or how can this theory be made to square with the predisposition of the Polynesian for the same class of diseases, especially when the leptorrhinism of this latter race is taken into account? At all events, this element of race must be reckoned with in every comparison of the statistics of different localities.

In the geographical distribution of diseases there is no more uncertain factor than the ethnic peculiarities of syphilis. It can therefore never be neglected in any project for acclimatization by crossing with the natives, since its relation to fertility is so important. Probably brought by the Aryan race to America and to New Guinea, and by it disseminated in Polynesia, this disease seems to be as yet unknown in Central Africa to any extent. In fact, it dies out naturally in the interior of that continent even when introduced, while it kills the American aborigines at sight, From this dread disease the Chinese are especially exempt; for if contracted, it speedily becomes benign, in marked contrast to the Japanese, who betray their Malay blood in this respect. Everywhere syphilis follows the Malay stock even in crossing with other races, like the negroid, which by nature is immune, as has been said. In Madagascar, where five sixths of a certain population was infected, Hirsch declares that the Malagasy (negroid) element is quite free from it, the Hovas (Malay cross) having it in the severest form.

It will at once appear that these ethnic peculiarities of syphilis are of the greatest importance, therefore, since this disease is likely to prevail among exactly those classes in a colonial population where ethnic crossing would be most likely to occur. Intermixture as a remedy for acclimatization would consequently be much more difficult of application in the East Indies or in South America than in Cochin China or the Congo Valley; for