§ 4: On Sporadic Variations Appearing in a Generation and on Their Successive Transmission

Concerning sporadic variations observed from the earliest times, much has been written by both ancient and modern scholars. The change of color and the structure of hair is customary and remarkable in Guinea, according to Boetheim. All birds and dogs are equally black as the inhabitants. The cattle of the countryside of Rome are invariably light-colored; whereas in certain districts of Italy, the livestock are generally reddish. The swine and sheep of the country are almost all black, whereas in England white is the predominant color. In Corsica, the horses, dogs, and other animals turn out pleasingly spotted. Many authors have attributed to certain rivers the property of giving color to the birds grazing along their banks. Thus Galen notes that the rivers of Boeotia and the Xanthus near Troy give a yellowish color to their flocks, from which the Xanthus itself took its name.

Rose, in his letters concerning northern Italy, says that even today such a quality is attributed to the river (Ticino). The idea of the inhabitants is that not only the cattle of the country are white because of the river (to be precise, they have a milk-colored hue), but likewise the oxen in other places drinking the water of that river have the same color. This narrative perhaps reminds us of the white flocks on the banks of the beautiful river Clitumnus, of which Virgil speaks; which makes the flocks and cattle white, worthy victims that they might be offered by the Romans during their triumphs to the altars of the gods; and perhaps this explains it.

The structure of hair undergoes analogous alteration. In vain did they try to produce wool in the Antilles islands; for the flocks brought there cast off their wool and are covered with hair. The same thing happens in other hot climates. “The sheep in Guinea,” says Swan, “bear so little resemblance to those of Europe that a foreigner, if he does not hear them bleating, could ask what species of animals they are, since they are covered with a brownish-gray and black hair like that of dogs”; thus a certain imaginative author observed that “here the world seems to have been turned upside down; for the sheep have hair and men have wool”.

A similar phenomenon presents itself in the regions around Ankara, where almost all animals—sheep, goats, hares, and weasels—are covered with a silky and long hair much sought after in the handicrafts of the East. Similarly, other animals are subject to these changes; for the bishop Heber informs us that dogs and horses brought from India to the mountains immediately become covered with hair like the goat of those climates, with woolly fur.

But if we examine the general form and structure of animals, we shall see that these two subjects undergo greater alterations. No animal exhibits this more clearly than the ox; for in no other animal has art and work applied so many ways. What a contrast does not exist between the bulkier, slower, and heavier animals passing through the streets of Rome and the smaller cattle with small heads and flexible limbs which English landowners prize highly! According to Boetheim, “European dogs alter very rapidly to a singular degree. In Guinea, in Odum ean. (Beside the Grove, page 555): their ears become broad and thin like those of a fox, to which body they likewise attach themselves. In this way they change so much that within three or four years they become very ugly, and after so many years they cease to bark, and nothing is heard from them but growls similar to those of a fox”. Boetheim also says that “the dogs of the country are very ugly, resembling greatly other foxes with their ears; their tails are small, thin, and pointed at the end; without any hair they have only bare, smooth skin, spotted or plain; without any hair they have only bare, smooth skin, spotted or plain; they never bark but howl. The natives call it ouari do passio, which in Portuguese means a kind of wild animal; they eat them and esteem their meat more than that of sheep”.

Hence it appears that climate or other local causes contribute to this circumstance, so that a species of animal brought from another country to the same conditions as the native generations presents within a few generations a form brought to the same conditions as the native generations exhibits within a few generations such an appearance as to drop all resemblance to the parent race and become entirely different in all respects. The camel likewise presents an example of extraordinary transformation. “In certain caravans we encountered,” says a traveler, “there were two camels much larger than any other kind I had ever seen, and so different from the camels of Arabia in their form and in the proportion of their body’s limbs” as different as the shepherd dog is from the hunting dog. These camels had large heads and an equally thick neck, from which hung hair of a deep to black color, coarse and long; their legs were short, and at the middle very thick; the body and haunches were round and fleshy; yet the height from the ground was a foot higher than the camels of the Arabian desert.

Since we are speaking of camels, we can observe that their great characteristic shape, the hump on their back, which appears double in the Bactrian camels, is considered by some naturalists as a sporadic division of the primitive type. They suppose it to originate from a fatty substance deposited in the fibrous strands of their back as a result of the continuous action of heat, precisely in the same way that the camel-like humps appear on the zebu of Indian cattle, and the tails of the sheep of Padaria and Syria, as well as the analogous form appearing above the buttocks of the women of the Hottentots.

These examples demonstrate that sporadic and chance variations not only can appear by themselves, but what is particularly relevant to the subject of our discussion, they can multiply among animals, and it will not be difficult to multiply the examples on this latter point; for the great prevalence of albino animals, such as white rabbits or milk-colored horses, which probably originated initially from weakness, demonstrates how easy it is for these varieties to arise. But Doctor Prichard gives a very remarkable example, that of short-legged sheep known by the name Acon, or the otter breed, developed many years ago in England. This arose from a sporadic or chance occurrence, or more precisely, from an animal uniquely formed, which communicated all its peculiarities to its offspring to such a degree that it promises to become permanent. It is also well known that the breed producing the enormous Hereford cattle arose technically through a combination with those bearing the greatest elements of perfection. The basis was the Rylow breed, or a small family of Heslash; and all cattle having exceptional dimensions of the body are allied to this breed.

These phenomena, confirmed by facts, present a foundation analogous to application to human types; nor is it easy to say that such large variations could not have arisen and been transmitted through descendants among men as well as among inferior animals; for we have seen that similar variations distinguished by the shape of the skull, the color, and the structure of the hair of the head and the general stature of the body arise among animals from a single genus; furthermore, it appears to be shown that differences in a kind can arise originally from some sporadic variety, which by particular circumstances becomes stable and characteristic and transmissible through descendants. Hence from these facts, we cannot say it is very probable that in the human race the same causes, acting in similar manner, could have produced results no less stable than the varieties in the animal kingdom, which appear also in our kind, and do not differ in any way from one another; thus they do not demand that we be forced to resort to a forced cause or another exceptional thing.

We can consider the varieties distinguishing the human race into races as sporadic phenomena that appeared in certain families and through successive transmission have become stable and characteristic of that family.

Such sporadic phenomena are observed even today in very many families among all known races. For example, blond hair is a privileged characteristic of the Caucasian race; and yet there are people among all known races having hair of this color. Chircol found it among the Eskimos; Sommerats among the Papua (savages of Australia); Nalis among the Nubians; and Horpaz among the blacks; this phenomenon is no more remarkable than what we observe among us, where woolly-haired people are found; but I think what makes an impression here is that in the woolly-haired peoples a tendency is observed, and that as to other characteristics of their face, they tend toward the Ethiopian race, such as a more brownish coloring and thick lips.

In the published specimens of skulls displayed by Blumenbach in his museum there is a skull of a Dithmaran which, when seen from the side, could be taken for that of an Ethiopian. But the most curious example of such sporadic alterations is the approach of one race to another. As a recent investigator of the Hauran, that is a region beyond the Jordan, writes the following: “The family inhabiting here (at abra-el Boday) had the characteristics of the Ethiopian race, a dark black color, and woolly hair.” Initially I thought this might be due to descent from an Ethiopian mother, as such women are sometimes found as wives or concubines even among the Arabs; but at the same time I could not doubt my own observations, that the father of the family was an Arab of white color and mixed blood; and they assured me that neither the men nor the women of the present generation nor of those preceding were all legitimate nobles by birth and by marriage, and that in the family’s history they had never known as wife or concubine an Ethiopian woman. This is truly a very remarkable case observed among the Arabs dwelling in the basin of the Jordan, having broader facial characteristics, a dark complexion, and woolly hair, than which no other race shows such a resemblance; a quality which ought to be attributed, I believe, rather to the continuous and intense heat of this region than to any other cause.

If all these events and cases found here are considered as sufficiently proved, we have assuredly a remarkable example of a human being of one race approaching another in the distinguishing characteristics which are transmitted through succession of the kind.

There are truly examples of variations much more deeply marked, much more paradoxical appearing among men and distinguishing one race from another, transmitted from father to son. Certain variations would make the solution of the problem occupying us much more difficult if they appeared in some distant country and through the succession of the kind were perpetuated and shaped a remarkable people. Without doubt the most remarkable variety is that transmitted through three generations in the family of Lambert, known generally by the name of the porcupine man. The leader of this strange generation, when still young, was shown by his father around 1731 and came from neighboring countries; from Addison Hull in Britain. Dr. Martin in the same year described him in his work Philosophical Transactions. He described him as having his whole body covered with horny growths (fleshy protrusions) with coarse hair of the thickness of twine and length of one and a half fingers.

Around 1700 he was shown again under the same title; he was described by M. Scory in a note as an appendix presented by the foregoing M. Martin. But what is most interesting is that, having already reached his fortieth year, he had six children who at the same age—all seven weeks from their birth—presented the same peculiarity, and the only one of his children who survived was shown with his father. M. Bedsort gave a description of the hand of the son, as M. Martin gave one of the hand of the father.

Around 1802 the children of this boy were displayed throughout Germany by a certain Mr. Zohar, who claimed that these boys belonged to a race found in New Holland or within other very distant countries. But Doctor Tilesius examined them very carefully and published the most accurate description we have of this peculiar family, with illustrations on both brothers, John aged 41 and Elsmar aged 13.

Their father, the boy of M. Bedsort’s account, was still living and was a hunter for Lord Walpole-Headall in Britain. When shown the illustration of their father’s hand, both recognized it from a unique button of particular shape that he had on the button of his undershirt.

Tilesius’s description from page 80 to the end is very detailed and exactly matches those previously given. The entire body, except the palms of the hands, the soles of the feet, and the face, was covered with keratin-like growths of reddish-brown color, hard, elastic, approximately one and a half fingers in length. From manual rubbing a sound arose because of their mutual collision. Each year these keratin growths fell off, and their shedding was always accompanied by some degree of discomfort; they fell off also with the application of mercury, but in both cases they grew again within a short space of time. The conclusions drawn by Mr. Bedsort from this phenomenon are very correct and carry moreover great weight, since they came to another generation and under two different circumstances. “It appears, therefore,” he says, “beyond all doubt that a generation could be multiplied from this man having a shrunk or covered body like his own, and if this happened and the original occasion was forgotten, it would not be difficult to regard this generation as a wholly different species of humans.” This observation will lead us almost to conclude that the species of humans originated from a single stock. The black skin of the Ethiopians and many other variations of the same nature can likewise in full likelihood owe their existence to some sporadic occurrence multiplied through hereditary succession.

Another, more common, variety that prevailed throughout a family consisted of an excessive number of fingers. In ancient Rome they were distinguished by a particular name; the six-fingered are mentioned by Pliny and by other important writers. Ben A. de la Vio carefully traced the history of such a family through four generations. This one was named Colburn, and this peculiarity was transmitted in the family from the grandfather to the younger descendant whom he examined; this was not regular and was observed only in certain children in each generation. Maupertuis speaks of another example in Germany, and one famous surgeon in Berlin, James Eso, belonged to a family which had this peculiarity on the mother’s side.

Another curious phenomenon is presented by horned men. A portrait of a horned man is preserved in the Library of Paris bearing this inscription. “Portrait of the horned man found in the province of Maine in France”.

“Nature at all times and in all places has produced strange and terrible monsters. France, however, appears that beyond all other places it produced more such creatures, both on land and in the sea, and in its forests; not long ago in Maine there was discovered a human being bearing on his forehead a true horn, visible and tangible. Behold his portrait accompanied with all the information and circumstances which the man himself acknowledged with his own mouth. This man, named François Trouvillain, having the limbs of his body formed like all men, of moderate stature, well-nourished, with a bald forehead except a few hairs in back, otherwise of rustic manners and appearance and gait, and wearing the skin of a wolf on his body; he was born in the village of Thersière, which is the property of General Laberdine; from childhood he spent time in the forest and in the fields, and until his seventh year of age he had neither horn nor any trace of such a thing; around that time it began to grow, and seven more years passed and the horn was barely a finger’s size, slightly protruding from his head, but after that it grew in such a manner that at the age of thirty-five—for that is how long he lived—it very much resembled in size, thickness, and shape the horn of a pig curving upward from his head. Behold also how it was discovered. The general magistrate Laberdine, hunting in the forests, saw from afar some charcoal-workers and took them for thieves. Wherefore he also pursued them with his men; when he overtook them, the man with the horn, seeing that he would inevitably be captured and exposed, wished to hide under the low-hanging branches, but failing to do so, was captured with the charcoal-workers and brought before the general; while all the others were unveiled, he alone resisted and did not wish to be exposed; then a servant approached and tore off his hat and threw it to the ground, thus the monstrous horn was revealed, which all saw not without a little astonishment that forced the poor man not to be exposed; accordingly he was sent by the general to the king at Fontainebleau, and by his order was brought to Paris, to be displayed at the hall of curiosities, which lasted for two months”.

And this indeed is the inscription of the woodcut. In the Journal compiled by Letroilles during the reign of Henry the Fourth, we find the following passage, by which the more sober parts of the narrative of the publisher of the woodcut are confirmed.

“It is a few days since a man named François Trouvillan, thirty-five years old, was shown in a certain house near Saint-Eustache, bearing on his head a horn curved inward, which would have pierced your head if from time to time he had not trimmed it. They say the horn appeared in his seventh year of age, and out of shame for his deformity he fled to the forests and lived there working with the charcoal-workers.

One day the Lord Marquis Laberdine, hunting, encountered the charcoal-workers, whom he took for thieves. The Marquis, taking them for thieves, ordered them to be pursued. Wherefore seizing them, they led them before the general; while all the others were unveiled, he alone resisted and did not wish to be exposed; then a servant approached and snatched his hat and threw it to the ground, thus the horn was revealed. The Marquis seeing it took it with him, and afterwards sent it to the king, who, after displaying it in his court, delivered it to his grooms, so that they should display it to the people and receive money. This man has a bald forehead, has a reddish beard, and the hair behind his head, and is altogether a satyr bereft of shame.

In the same journal we also read the following.

“It should be noted that such growths are not so rare in men as one might suppose from the silence of the ancient writers. Those having such defects are understood to have taken care in every way to hide them from the eyes of men, so far as the size and position of the growth permitted. We saw that in Trouillac the discovery occurred by chance; below we give an image of a horned woman whose horn points downward and is in front of her face. This woman was named Kyriaké and lived some time ago in Paris. At the age of eighty-four she was not afraid to undergo surgery, so as to be freed from this deformity of her body, which daily became more troublesome. The surgery performed by a skilled surgeon was very successful. The image was taken a few days before the horn was cut off by the surgeon. When one sees the paradoxical size of this protrusion, one marvels upon learning that this entire mass was formed within four years, since until the eightieth year the forehead of Kyriaké presented only the wrinkles of age. But when the heterogeneous growth formed on her forehead, shortly afterward similar growths appeared in many places on her skin; a multitude grew on the curved part of her hand, and since they were very troublesome, the old woman accustomed herself to cut them from time to time as we cut our nails; the root and a second horn growing appeared on her forehead; and on her right cheek appeared another horn with a length of nine or ten lines.”

Since the organs secreting the bony substance of the horn are situated deep in the epidermis, it appears that at first the horn was skin and that afterwards the tension which it gave to the skin transformed the underlying thin and cellular tissue into fibrous tissue, and thus gradually the base of the horn solidified into the forehead bones. The same thing happens in animals in which the horn is naturally present but presents much abnormality. The female goats of the sheep bear small horns; but in all domestic species the females completely lack horns.

Even if the development of the bony nucleus of the horn occurs together with the development of the outer layer, there are nevertheless exceptions to this rule. From Aelian we learn that in his times there existed in certain coastal regions of the Red Sea cattle having horns as moveable as their ears.

Certainly in those animals the horns were attached not to the bone but to the skin, for when the bony nucleus was blunted and did not exist, the outer layer nonetheless continued to grow and formed the moveable horns. This phenomenon is very important as it confirms the possibility of the transmission of some variation from parents to children arising from a chance occurrence, whether natural or artificial.

An important sporadic phenomenon is also the scale of human body sizes, of which the highest degree is occupied by giants and the lowest by dwarfs, who isolated would constitute races so contradictory as also varied.

From what has been said so far I believe it has been demonstrated both by analogy and by direct examples, first, that there exists a continuous tendency, or let me say a force in nature tending to produce in our species varieties continuously of a very extraordinary character, now approaching in a remarkable manner, that is through distinctive, special, and unique characters, very different from the race in which these varieties were born, and second, that these can be transmitted, deriving from father to son through the succession of generations.

Such testimony thus stated is of great value, because we reason that the various families or races among men can owe their origins to some sporadic occurrence or to the chance appearance of a variety, which having taken its beginning first in some generation, afterwards under the circumstances favorable to it, such as the isolation of the family in which this variety appeared and intermarriage among themselves, became stable and perpetual.

But, one will ask, do we have examples of entire nations that were altered in this manner? Or otherwise, do we have an example that these alterations were brought through succession to a large scale? The answer to this question will be the removal of all difficulties and the solution of the question through a single point, which at present is not easy; but the investigations being conducted on the question will provide the materials for drawing some positive conclusion.