Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    103/600 (page 91)
    The amount of short hair scattered over our bodies is very variable. In the male it is always more plentiful than in the female, and certain races, such as the Ainos, the Australians, the Todas of the Nilgherries, are distinguished for their hairiness, whilst others, such as the African Negroes and the Mongolians, show scarcely a trace of hair on their body. Amongst the Ainos, indeed, the hair over the shoulders and on the back and limbs is sometimes so thick and long as to deserve the name of fur. I have referred to curious cases where the beard is developed in women. We meet with equally interesting instances of ex- cessive hair-growth over the entire surface or part of the body. Two years ago Farini exhibited a little girl of seven years old called Krao, whose body was covered with a thick coating of hair. He called her the human monkey, and claimed that she was the long sought for missing link. Need I say how ridiculous these assertions were. Krao was merely a human child in whom the short hairs of the body were excessively developed. I shall now show you her photograph projected upon the screen. I may mention another case which occurred in London in 1865, in a girl of twelve years old. From the illustration which I show you you will observe that the excessive hair-growth is limited in this case to the upper part of the body. General hairiness of the body appears to be a character which is readily transmitted. Krao's father was said to be hairy, and at the Court of Ava there is a family in which this peculiarity has appeared in three generations. This curious case is placed altogether beyond the range of doubt. We have the independent evidence of two thoroughly reliable authorities who saw and figured the three members of this remarkable family at different times, viz., in 1829, when the family consisted of father and daughter; and in 1855, after the daughter had been married and had borne several children, of which one exhibited the peculiarity.^ * John Crawford's *'Journal of an Embassy from tlie Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava. Captain H. Yule's Narrative of the Mission sent by the Governor^General of India to the Court of Ava.