of certain plants, while the pigmented individuals may eat them without harm. In Devonshire and in parts of Kent the farmers entertain a marked prejudice against white pigs, because “the sun blisters their skin.” More remarkable is the case of certain cattle, whose skin is piebald, marked by a general ground colour over which are scattered patches of unpigmented coat. In these animals, in certain inflammatory skin eruptions, caused by the ingestion of harmful plants, the albinotic areas are alone affected. And with certain cutaneous diseases accompanied by constitutional disturbances which afflict cattle, the affection in the skin appears on the patches bearing white hairs, the other parts remaining apparently healthy. Such cases suggest that we should be more correct in regarding, not albinism as correlated with constitutional defects, but rather pigmentation as correlated with powers of immunity or increased resistance against certain injurious processes. In the West Indies “the only horned cattle fit for work are those which have a good deal of black in them; the white are terribly tormented by the insects and they are weak and sluggish in proportion to the black.”
Coming to man, it is known that some albino negroes are peculiarly sensitive to the bites of insects; and with Europeans it is a generally observed fact that the fairer individuals are more seriously affected by the bites of fleas and bugs than are darker ones. Dr Twining, in the British Association Reports for 1845, p. 79, cites some instances described by Humboldt, who says that the copper-coloured natives of the high plain of Bogoto, and at a lower level on the Magdalena river, were generally free from goitre. Professor Poffig, also cited by Dr Twining, states that on the east side of the Andes in Chile, in some of the races which live there, he did not see a single case of goitre, and yet in the white inhabitants, who live exactly as the natives, it prevails in a great degree:
Turning now to instances of the opposite kind, it is known that silkworms which spin colourless cocoons are more resistant to the attacks of a certain deadly fungus than are those which spin the yellow ones. In some parts of North America it is found that the white peaches are much less liable to the attack of a disease known as the “yellows” than are the yellow-fleshed ones. In the region of the Mississippi, Farabee has observed that the albino negroes are taller and broader than the black-skinned individuals. We may assume that increased stature and breadth imply some sort of inherent physical superiority, and if such an assumption is valid we have in man evidence that albinism is correlated not with constitutional defectiveness but with greater perfectness.
But the question as to whether albinoes are more or less constitutionally vigorous than pigmented individuals of the same species may be tested by exact measurement. In 1893 W. D. Halliburton and T. G. Brodie, in ascertaining the physiological properties of nucleo-proteids, found that when they were intravascularly injected into pigmented rabbits, coagulation of the blood resulted, but of the eight albinoes which they used, none clotted. At a subsequent period (1897) Halliburton and J. W. Pickering showed that the three synthesized colloids of Grimaux in the same way produced coagulation in pigmented animals, but failed to do so in albinoes. Pickering, still later, showed, in the case of four Norway hares, two of which were injected while in their pigmented or summer coat, and two while in their albino or winter coat, that coagulation occurred in the former cases but not in the latter.
Quite recently, however, the author of this article has made a more detailed examination of the question, operating upon several hundreds of rabbits. And he found that all albinoes do not fail to clot when intravascularly injected with nucleo-proteids. Only about 9% of them thus failed absolutely to manifest any trace of coagulation. But about 7% showed an exceedingly limited coagulation, in which the clot was colourless and flocculent, and confined to the heart. The rest gave a typical and more or less wide-spread coagulation. Moreover, it was found that all the failures of coagulation occurred when the nucleo-proteid used was obtained from pigmented animals. When it was derived from albinoes no failures occurred. All pigmented animals clotted when the nucleo-proteid was derived from either source. The Himalayan rabbits reacted like complete albinoes, and 12% of them failed to clot when injected with nucleo-proteid extracted from pigmented animals.
The interesting fact was thus ascertained that all albinoes are not alike. To students of heredity this is precisely what would have been expected. For, as the facts above described show, albinoes, though apparently identical externally, are yet the carriers of different hereditary characters. Among albino rats, for instance, the author of this article has reason to believe, upon theoretical grounds resting on an experimental basis, that probably no less than thirteen types exist. With rabbits and mice there must be a still larger number.
In the intravascular coagulation experiments above described, all the rabbits were carefully weighed, and the amount of nucleo-proteid injected until coagulation occurred was measured. This would give for albinoes and pigmented individuals the amount per kilogramme of body-weight required to kill in each case, and would afford a measurement of the relative resistance of the two races. It was found that the resistance of albinoes towards the coagulative effects of injected nucleo-proteids was to that of pigmented individuals as 1·5 to 1·0. In this case, the greater constitutional vigour of the albino is thus accurately demonstrated. But it does not necessarily follow that with other materials and with other constitutional qualities the state of things would not be reversed.
One other feature remains to be mentioned. Albinism appears, in the processes of heredity, to be sometimes indissolubly correlated with certain peculiar traits. It is well known that the long-haired albino rabbit, called Angora, when at rest, has the habit of swaying its head sideways in a peculiar fashion. C. C. Hurst has shown that the long-haired and albino characters are always accompanied in heredity with the swaying habit. The Angora character never occurs without it.
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ALBINONI, TOMASSO (c. 1674–c. 1745), Italian musician, was born at Venice. He was a prolific composer of operas attracting contemporary attention for their originality, but is more remarkable as a composer of instrumental music, which greatly attracted the attention of Bach, who wrote at least two fugues on Albinoni’s themes and constantly used his basses for harmony exercises for his pupils.
