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1214 An American Dilemma
® Earnest A. Hooton, “The Anthropometry of Some Small Samples of American
Negroes and Negroids,” in Day, of, cit,, pp. 104.-106, and Herskovits, Anthrofom^
ctr^ of the American NegrOy pp. 177-227.
Some anthropologists believe that certain unique Negro traits are exceptions to this
rule; some disappear rapidly when even a small admixture of white ancestry is present,
and others are tenacious despite large admixtures of white blood.® There is great
disagreement even among these few observers, but we may note some of those traits
which have been studied: hair form and low hair level are said to have a high degree
of “yieldingness,” while ear height, interpupillary distance, and hair color are said
to be “entrenched.” The nature of the inheritance of skin color is still a matter of
debate, but the majority opinion seems to be that, on the average, the color of the off-
spring tends to be a blend of the colors of his parents.
Cobb, “Physical Anthropology of the American Negro: Status and Desiderata,”
pp. 55-56. Cobb points out that even though Negroes may have continued to hold a
certain championship, a white man of today is often better than the Negro champion of
twenty years ago. See also Lewis, of, cit,y p. 73, and compare Cobb^s findings.
See Section 3 of this chapter. A few of the earlier beliefs about Negro suscepti-
bility to disease- are cited in Young, of, cit,^ p. 339; in Harry Bakwin, M.D., “The
Negro Infant,” Human Biology (February, 1932), pp. i“33; and in Charles S. John-
son and Horace M. Bond, “The Investigation of Racial Differences Prior to 1910,”
Journal of Negro Education (July, 1934), pp. 335“337*
For some of the earlier beliefs about Negro susceptibility to mental disease—which
generally tried to show that Negroes had little mental disease under the secure condition
of slavery—see Lewis, of, cit,y pp. 266-267.
Concretely, this experiment should be made by selecting two groups of children
—
Negro and white—carefully matched in all essentials, keeping them in a controlled
laboratory situation for at least a month to test and increase their comparability, and
then inoculating them with certain disease germs (just as in ordinary inoculations to
develop immunity). Large differentials in reaction ought to suggest, though not measure,
differences in racial susceptibility or immunity.
After writing the statement in the text, our attention was called by Lewis* book to
the only approach to such an experiment that Lewis notes in his careful survey of the
field. Its weaknesses—in terms of inadequate controls and insufficient cases—^make its
findings completely inconclusive, but its methodology is interesting.
“In order to find the difference between colored and white people in their reactions
to tubercle bacilli under controlled conditions, Levine (American Journal of Diseases of
Children [1936], p. 1052) inoculated 74 white, 38 Negro, and 24 Puerto Rican
children with identical amounts of living attenuated bovine tubercle bacilli (BCG).
Necrosis of the local lesion on the thigh occurred more rapidly in Negro children than
in white. Inguinal abscesses developed in more children and more rapidly among
Negroes and Puerto Ricans than among whites. When the effect of such variables as
age, previous exposure to tubercle bacilli, economic status, and nutrition were taken into
account, there still remained a racial factor that is related to the more severe reaction
in Negroes and Puerto Ricans.** (Lewis, of, cit,y p. 140.)
•T. W. Todd, “Entrenched Negro Physical Features,** Human Biology (January, i929).i
pp. 57-69. Also Hooton, “The Anthropometry of Some Small Samples of American Negroes
and Negroids’* in Day, of, cit.y pp. 104-106, and Herskovits, The Anthropometry of the
American Negro
y
pp. 177-227.
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