Page:The Negro a menace to American civilization.djvu/43

Rh fact that American anatomists were neglecting a field fertile in promise, rich in opportunity and certain to yield fruitful results to careful cultivation. I refer to the investigation of the anatomical peculiarities of the negro, including in that term both those of pure and mixed blood. This field is peculiarly our own and, from the necessity of the case, must long continue to be so. We owe it to ourselves not less than to our science to investigate it thoroughly. We should not let slip this opportunity to make and record careful observations.

"A recent search through the literature bearing on this point, made in another connection, enables me to say that, by the European anatomist, an opportuinty to study a negro subject is regarded as an especial privilege. Each organ and structure is carefully examined and all anomalies noted. Thus Turner in England and Chudzinski in France have put on record detailed accounts of dissections of this character and evidently they are regarded as of high scientific value. With us the very abundance of such material leads to its neglect. Were negro subjects so much of a rarity with us as they are abroad we may easily imagine with what care each one would be dissected.

"It seems to me that we have here a remarkable chance to make solid additions to our science, particularly in the line of comparative anatomy which, to my mind, is the only scientific anatomy.

"In isolated instances this has been done and the literature of-medicine and anthropology contains not a few allusions to this matter. Among others, Parker has noted important differences between negro and Caucasian brains and Baker has recorded many