BRIEF REMARKS
ON THE
DIVERSITIES OP THE HUMAN SPECIES,

     AND ON SOME KINDRED SUBJECTS.

                BEING AN

     INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

         DELIVERED BEFORE THE CLASS OF


 PENNSYLVANIA MEDICAL COLLEGE,

         IN PHILADELPHIA,

             NOVEMBER 1,1842.


    BY SAMUEL GEORGE MORTON, M.D.
       Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in that Institution.



          "The noblest study of mankind is Man."
PUBLISHED BY THE CLASS.
/'

XVc'-f
          PHILADELPHIA:
MERRIHEW & THOMPSON, PRINTERS,
          No. 7 Carter's Alley.
1842. 
 
CORRESPONDENCE.
                                        Philadelphia, Nov. 6th, 1842.
   Dear Sin,—At a meeting  of  the  Students of Pennsylvania  Medical
College,held in the College buildings, James F. X. McCloskey in the chair, the
undersigned were appointed a Committee on behalf  of the Class to request a
copy  of your Introductory  Lecture  for publication.  In  performing this
pleasing duty, the Committee would respectfully request that the  wishes of
their fellow students  be  complied  with, and beg leave to add, on their own
part, the sincere desire they feel to witness  the publication of your highly
eloquent and appropriate address.  Should it meet  with your views, wo sin-
cerely hope you will transmit  a copy for publication.
           We are, dear Sir,
                    Your sincere friends and pupils,
                             D. W. C. B. CALDWELL, of Virginia.
                             J. H. B. McCLELLAN, Philadelphia.
                             H. S. MAYER, Pennsylvania.
                             E. R. MAYER, Philadelphia.
                             J. L. THOMPSON, Arkansas.
                             J. F. X. McCLOSKEY, Philadelphia.
                                       Philadelphia, Nov. 10th, 1842.
   Gentiimw,-Your obliging note of the  8th inst. is  before me; and in
reply I have only to say that I will most cheerfully  furnish you with a copy
of my Introductory  Lecture for publication.  I must, however, solicit the
indulgence of a little delay, in consequence of many and  pressing engage-
ments.
     I remain, gentlemen, with great regard,
                                Yours very faithfully,
                                   SAMUEL GEORGE  MORTON.
To  Messrs.  1). W. C. B. Caldwell, H.  S. Mayer,  E  R  Mayer J  H  B
      M'Clellan, J. L. Thompson, J. F. X. M'Closkey, Committee.'  ' 
 
         INTRODUCTORY  LECTURE.


   Gentlemen,—" Time rolls his  ceaseless  course"—and
 thus, after the lapse of a few short  months, we have again
 assembled to render our willing  homage at  the  shrine of
 science. We have resolved to search into the  arcana  of our
 adopted profession : to qualify ourselves to minister to " the
 many ills that flesh  is heir to;"  and to  exalt, ourselves in
 that profession which was honored, in antiquity, with the
 guardianship of a god.
   Ours is essentially a science of facts.  In Anatomy little
 should be taken for granted that  cannot be made  manifest
 to observation;  while, in Physiology, we are not called up-
 on to believe any thing that does not follow as an obvious
 and reasonable result  of demonstrable facts.  Like the
 Geographer who goes  forth to study  the  seas, the rivers
 and the mountains of the earth, so  do we search into the
 varied and multiform tissues of the  human body,__so wise-
 ly constructed,  so harmoniously  blended,  and so mutely
 eloquent of the hand that made them.
   My province is to teach the structure and  functions of
 the human body ; that inimitable  contrivance which we
 are assured, on the strongest testimony, was created in the
 image of its Maker.  To comprehend disease we must first
 become familiar with that fabric which is subject  to  its in-
 fluences ;  we must study man in  all the phases of his de-
 velopement, from childhood  to  senility; and we  must
 acquaint ourselves with those varied circumstances  of cli-
 mate and locality which act on the springs of life, and  modi-
 fy their numberless  functions.
   Man, regarded in his general character, is the  same  in
 every zone ; he possesses the same general conformation,
and notwithstanding some  striking diversities of organiza-
tion, the whole human family is to be regarded as a  single 
fi
species.  Yet, notwithstanding this approximation of man-
kind in essential and  specific  characteristics, I firmly  be-
lieve that they were originally, or, in other words, before
their dispersion into different latitudes, endowed with those
varied traits of mind and  body which  alone could adapt
them to their various allotments on the  face of the earth.
The more I have reflected on these diversities, the more  I
am confirmed in the conclusion, that they have not resulted
from physical causes acting on constitutions originally the
same, but that, on the contrary, there has been a  primeval
difference among men; not an accidental occurrence, but  a
part of that all-pervading design which has adapted man, in
common with animals and plants, to those diverse  condi-
tions which form a necessary part of the economy of crea-
tion.  Some intelligent minds, influenced more, perhaps, by
feeling than by reflection, are unwilling to  admit these dif-
ferences among the several races of men;  regarding them
as incompatible with the equal wisdom and justice of Pro-
vidence.  Yet, on the other  hand, it requires but little ob-
servation to  convince oneself  that these very differences
form a universal, and  no doubt essential feature in the so-
cial organization of our species.  In the same family,  for
example, some individuals  are precocious of intelligence
from infancy itself, while others  are imbecile  from their
very birth.   In the one the mind developes itself in defi-
ance of every obstacle; while in the other, care and  cul-
ture are unavailing, and  the intellect, if it deserves  that
name,  remains in hopeless torpor till the end of life.  How
numberless are the gradations between these two extremes!
Nor are these diversities  confined  to the  physical and in-
tellectual man; they are also conspicuous in his moral
character, and pervade, in fact, every attribute of his exist-
ence.  What is undeniable on  the  small scale, is not less
true of the  great; and although we may not perceive  the
fitness  of things, this is no proof of the absence of wisdom
in their adaptation. 
7
  The inspired historian has depicted the moral and physi-
cal beauty of our first  parents in the gardens of Paradise,
among the vallies of Mesopotamia.  But temptation and
sorrow soon blighted this primeval happiness ; the earth be-
came filled with iniquity, and, by a universal calamity, the
race,  of man, excepting a single family, was swept from the
face  of creation.   Is  it to be supposed  that  this  family,
which had been  preserved from the  common fate of hu-
manity by a series of divine  interpositions, would  be sent
forth on the wide world to struggle with the vicissitudes of
chance?    Is it not more probable that the same  Infinite
power that conducted them unharmed through the Deluge
itself, would adapt them,  before their dispersion, to those
varied physical circumstances with which they were hence-
forward  to  contend ?   The  strongest moral contrasts are
coeval with the descent of mankind from the ark ;*  and we
may reasonably infer that equally strong physical diversities
were then established, constituting what are called in mo-
dern language, the Races of Men.   Now, as  these views
form a legitimate and philosophical department of  Physio-
logical inquiry, let us, pause  and devote a few moments to
their consideration.
  In the first place, then, we may remark, that if the black
complexion was the mere consequence of the action of the
sun's rays in a hot  climate, the  Indians of our own conti-
nent, who inhabit the torrid zone, ought to  be as dark-
skinned  as the inter-tropical Africans;  which is very far
from being the fact, for these American tribes are no darker
than others who live on the shores of the  Rio de la Plata, in
the cold region of Patagonia.  Again, if climate caused the
peculiar texture of the hair in the African, a  similar tem-
perature in the same latitudes of America, ought to produce
an analogous result in at least some portion of the indige-
nous population ; but the hair of the Indian, in all his locali-
ties,  is long  and lank, like that of the Mongolian :  nor, on
* See Genesis, Chap, ix., 25, 26, 27, and chap, lxix., 1 to 27. 
8
the other hand, does there appear to be the smallest ten-
dency in any American climate  to change the hair of the
Negro; for we have the experience of three  centuries in
the West India Islands, in disproof of any such mutation.
  If the African derives his complexion from the causes to
which we have  adverted, how does it happen that he be-
comes no fairer in a colder climate ?   Real Negroes consti-
tute the indigenous population of Van Diemen's Land,
which is nearly as cold as Ireland; and yet these very peo-
ple are among the most strongly marked tribes of the Af-
rican race.  In many islands of the Indian Archipelago,
the Nigritos, a race of Negroes of small stature, inhabit the
hill-country, and the Malays the^ low-lands  nearer  the
coast; and yet the Malay, under these circumstances, does
not approximate to the Negro in any <me of his physical
characteristics.
  So also the Dutch inhabitants of the Cape of Good Hope,
who have lived for  three centuries arnolg the Hottentots,
have preserved their natural traits u^altgijpdvi and this re-
mark is also true of the Arabs who have lived during many
generations among the Negroes in the heart of Africa, yet
have lost none of the distinctive features of their race. Analo-
gous examples might be multiplied to a great extent;  but
these may suffice the purpose of present illustration.
  That climate has a certain and obvious effect on the hu-
man body, I most certainly admit; and, taking the skin for
an illustration, we all know the effect of the sun's rays in
producing a darker complexion, as  seen in our  own lati-
tudes, and which is more strikingly manifest in those Cau-
casian or white nations who inhabit inter-tropical regions.
They become of a dark brown complexion, not unfrequent-
ly as sable as mulattoes;  but the children of  such parents,
if protected from the sun's rays, preserve the complexion
which is characteristic of their progenitors, as in the instance
of the  Arabs to  whom I have already adverted.   But
with regard to the permanence of those organic characters
which mark the different races of men, a conclusive source 
9
 of evidence has within a few years been disclosed to us in
 the monuments of Egypt. These venerable and truly won-
 derful remains of human ingenuity, embrace numberless
 legends, of which the knowledge of hieroglyphic literature
 has established not only the meaning, but the dates them-
 selves ; and by their  evidence we discover  the interesting
 fact, that the several races of men were as perfectly distinct
 in Egypt  upwards of three thousand  five hundred years
 ago as they are  now.  The white man and  the Negro are
 there depicted, side by side, with the same physical charac-
 teristics which are  now familiar to our daily observation.
 This vast  period Of thirty-five centuries, has made no  ap-
 preciable change  in either ; and as less than seven hundred
 years could have intervened between the positive existence
 of these  distinctions  and the epoch of the Deluge accord-
 ing to the Hebrew chronology, we come to the unavoidable
 conclusion, as already stated, that these diversities of organi-
 zation were coeval with the dispersion of our species.   Let
 me repeat, therefore, my admonition, that We may not hasti-
 ly attribute to mere chance those singular phenomena which
 bear the impress  of obvious  and  original design.
   Some minds would be perhaps equally disposed to at-
 tribute the diversity of languages also to accident, were it
 not for the positive evidence to the contrary, which is pre-
 served in the inspired  records; proving  that in this, as in
 every  other instance,  whatever was requisite for  the  pro-
 tection, variation, and perpetuity of the human  race, re-
 quired but the fiat of Omnipotence, and it was done.
   The negro  presents us, moreover,  with  a remarkable
 example of the adaptation of constitution to climate. Thus,
 there are vast tracts on both the eastern and western coasts
 of inter-tropical Africa, in which the European constitution
 at once becomes  the victim  of enervating and destroying
 fevers; and although  if may, for a time, resist the  fatal ef-
 fect of these subtle influences, it  sooner or later becomes a
 prey to them.   No precautions can prevent them ;  and no
manner of life accustoms an exotic constitution  to con- 
10
tend with its unseen but indomitable enemy. In these very
climates, in the  midst of these lethal  exhalations, in this
foul and poisoned atmosphere, the  negro reaches the acme
of his physical nature, and  scorns  those precautionary re-;
straints which are necessary to the European.
  This  remark applies to the  negro not only in his  native
African regions, to which we  presume his constitution is
essentially assimilated,  but  also in exotic climates; for  I
believe the fact has been  satisfactorily proved, that he is
much less subject than the white man to the yellow fever
of our own country, and also to those destroying epidemics
which infest the rice plantations and other marshy districts
of the southern states.
   Yet,  on the other  hand, the  native inhabitants of a dis-
trict of  country  are  liable to diseases from which strangers
are exempt, owing to a  seemingly primitive difference of
constitution which appears to belong  to peculiar develop-
ments of the physical man.   For example, in or about the
year 1764, an inflammatory fever broke out among the In-
dian population of Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, and
was wholly confined to individuals of that race. The whole
number of Indians in Nantucket was 340; of these,  258
took the  distemper, and  only thirty-six  recovered.   In
Martha's  Vineyard, it  attacked every individual of those
Indian families  in  which  it made its appearance, being
fatal in nearly  all cases.    Now mark another  striking
fact: not a single white person took  the disease;  and all
those individuals who  were of a mixed Indian and Euro-
pean origin, although they took the disease, recovered  to a
man !'*
   * See  Lawrence's Lectures on Zoology, &c.  I  commend this work,
 which has  been republished in Salem, Massachusetts, to  your at-
tentive  perusal, as replete with  instructive facts, to which I  have re-
 curred on the present and all other occasions when engaged in inquiries
 into the Natural History of Man.  The more elaborate work of Dr.
 Prichard, of Bristol, England, will amply reward  an attentive perusal,
 inasmuch as it embodies the most extended series of facts in Anthropo-
logy to  be found in our language.  This  invaluable work has not been
reprinted in this country, but can be obtained from our larger libraries. 
11
           Do not these and similar facts point to an original adap
        tation of the physical man to the local position he was  or-
        dained to inhabit ?  I apprehend that without such adapta-
        tion, the patriarchal germs of our species would have been
        utterly destroyed in the effort to contend with those pesti-
        lential influences which appear to be inherent to certain lo-
t        calities on the surface of our earth.
           I have chiefly adverted  to the negro in the preceding re-
        marks,  because his physical characteristics contrast  more
        strongly with our own than those of the people of the  other
        races; yet the  same remarks are, on the general principle,
        applicable to any of the permanent varieties  of mankind,
        as a moment's reflection will prove.
           With these few facts in  illustration of the permanent  na-
        ture uf the human  complexion, let us  next advert to sta-
        ture.  Mankind have in different ages given credit to fables
        of the exaggerated kind in reference to giants and dwarfs ;
        yet, although instances occasionally occur of remarkable
        examples of both, there is  no evidence on record of a nation
        of either.
           The exceptions to the  ordinary stature of our species
        are  so  few,  that  they  merely  serve to  confirm  the
        general law which  regulates so important a point of  our
        physical nature ; and the reputed bones of gigantic men of
        a former age, have in every instance, when  submitted to
        scientific inspection, proved to  have belonged to the mas-
        todon, the elephant and other large quadrupeds, whose re-
        mains, in a fossil state, are more or less abundant in various
        parts of the world.
           The sacred writings, it  is true, tell us that  " there  were
        giants in those days;" but it does not say that there was a
        community of giants; and  the  same remark holds  good
        with reference to all subsequent time.
          If we have isolated examples of men of gigantic  stature
        in all ages,  we also have incontestible evidence as to  the
        general rule in remote epochs, in the embalmed bodies of
        the ancient Egyptians, which yet exist in vast numbers in 
12
 their interminable catacombs.   These skeletons, of which
 I have  examined a number, are rather below than above
 the ordinary stature, and in no other respect differ from the
 Caucasian  nations of our  own time,  although, were  we
 to judge of this  people only  by their stupendous  monu-
 ments,  we might suppose them to  have been  giants in-
 deed.   We have often  heard and read of the remains of
 giants in our own country,  supposed to be the relics of ab-
 original tribes which are now extinct.  These  again,  are
 mere deceptions  arising out of an ignorance  of human
 anatomy; for I can unhesitatingly declare, that of the ma-
 ny bones which have been sent me from  the  mounds and
 caves of the West, not one has indicated  an individual of
 extraordinary stature. The  Patagonians of South America
 are a very tall people, but not of gigantic proportions; and
 on reading the discrepant accounts which different travel-
 lers have given us in relation to them,  I have come to  the
 conclusion, that on  important interviews with strapgers,
 they select  their tallest men in order to make a favourable
 impression by the force of contrast,—a piece of diplomacy
 that would naturally suggest itself  to untutored minds.
 While in the temperate and  tropical countries the stature of
 man differs but little, even  in the  different races, from a
 certain average medium, we  find the inhabitants nearest
 the polar regions, both north and south, to be manifestly
 stunted  by their inhospitable climate, as evidenced in the
 Eskimaux and people of Terra  del Fuego.
   These facts lead to  a  few remarks in relation to what
 have been called Pigmy races, or those whose stature is
 asserted not to have exceeded that  of children.   Such of
 you as have resided in our western states, have  no  doubt
 heard and read of the so-called Pigmies of the  valley of the
 Mississippi; and  feeling much interest on the  subject, I
solicited Dr. Troost, of  Nashville, Tennessee, to send me
a skeleton from one of the reputed Pigmy-graves of White
county,  in that state.  He most obligingly complied with
my request; but the first glance  at  the  remains  of this 
13
 skeleton, showed me that it had belonged to a very juve-
 nile subject.   For example, many of the deciduous, or first
 teeth remain, and most of the permanent set are yet confined
 within the maxillary bones; while the long bones  being
 small, and separated by epiphyses, give additional evidence
 that this individual  was a mere child, which had not passed
 its eighth year; and the  conclusion is unavoidable, that
 these so called Pigmies were children, who, for reasons not
 readily explained, but which actuate some  religious  com-
 munities of  our own  time, were  buried  apart from the
 adult people of their tribe.
   We have all observed humiliating examples of the ap-
 proximation of man to the  monkey tribe; and this fact has
 led some men, and even some  philosophers,  to contend for
 the gradual transition of the one into the other.  Such was
 the avowed and published opinion  of  the eccentric  Lord
 Monboddo,  who even supposes  that man himself was
 originally embellished  with a tail; and  so strongly did he
 insist on this point, that a wag facetiously remarked that his
 lordship judged of others by himself.
   It is true that idiocy reduces man to  a defect of intelli-
 gence inferior to that which is  possessed by the brute ; but
 the. comparison is wholly unjust, inasmuch as man, in this
 instance, is seen in  the last stage  of human degradation
 owing to the presence of  disease.  I  have said  the  last
 stage of human degradation, but I must correct myself; for
 the last,  the lowest  and  most humiliating condition of
 man, is that in which he  voluntarily, and not by any dis-
 pensation of  Providence, abjures his  own manhood, de-
 stroys his own mind, corrupts his own morals and blights
 his own  fireside, by  the  all-consuming sin of habitual
 drunkenness.
   Let  us now, in the order proposed  by Mr. Lawrence,
 briefly consider those  characteristics of man which prove
 that he stands wholly isolated from every class of the infe-
rior animals,—a being of nobler mould and higher aim. 
14
  The erect posture is equally the attribute of every grade
of humanity, for even the most savage tribes constitute  no
exception to the rule ; and had any real exceptions ever ex-
isted, history or tradition would have preserved some evi-
dence of them, which, however, is not the case; for I leave
out of the  question a few isolated facts which  travellers
have  remarked of the people of Australia.   Again, the
whole conformation of man is adapted  to this position, as
seen in the  structure of the pelvis, the lower extremities,
and the muscular and other apparatus by which these are
governed.
  Man is also remarkable for the possession of two hands,
and  these  constructed with a degree  of  perfection, and
adapted to manifold purposes far surpassing any analogous
structure  in the inferior animals.   It is true that monkies
have  hands, and they have  even been called four-handed
animals.  But how does this hand compare to that of man ?
The principal part  of  the structure, the thumb, is slender,
short and weak, even in those examples which most nearly
approximate to man;  and the whole  apparatus is devoid
of those multitudinous uses which, in man, adapt the hand
to the mind, and the mind to the hand.
  The large proportion  which the cranium  bears  to  the
face in man, is very remarkable, and has even been as-
sumed as a criterion of the relative  intelligence of the dif-
ferent races.  It is true that these proportions differ in
whole nations; and it is an incontestible fact,  that the most
intellectual nations have  the largest and  most beautifully
formed heads.   That this  rule has  obtained  since  the
earliest times, is proved by the remains of the classic sculp-
ture of Egypt and of Greece, as well as by the every day
facts  which result  from our own observation.  Yet here,
again, remarkable  exceptions occur,  which are not, how-
ever, sufficiently numerous to invalidate the rule.
  My observations,though as yet made on a comparatively
limited scale, tend to the inference that the brain in the five 
15
races of men,—Caucasian, Mongolian, Malay, Aboriginal
American and Negro,—is successively smaller in each ; for
m the first it averages upwards of ninety cubic inches, in the
last about eighty-five.  I moreover notice the singular fact,
that the brain is smaller in certain inter-tropical nations than
in other cognate people  who inhabit  either farther  north
or farther south.  Examples may be adduced in the  Peru-
vian Indians of our own continent,  in  the  Austral-Egyp-
tians in Africa,  in the southern Arabs and Hindoos, and
in the Negro tribes of the Indian Archipelago.
   The only animal,  if I recollect rightly, which possesses
a brain absolutely larger than that of man, is the elephant;
for among most of the larger quadrupeds,  including  the
Rhinoceros and Hippopotamus, the  brain  is of singularly
small size.  But a more satisfactory mode  of investigation
is that which  compares the proportion  which  the mass of
the brain bears to the entire body ; and a series of experi-
ments early led  to the conclusion  that the human  brain
takes precedence of all others.  Such  is the general rule,
but  it is subject to some striking  exceptions; for it is
found that five  species  of monkeys;  the  dolphin; and
three kinds  of birds—the sparrow,  canary, and common
fowl, have, in this  respect, the advantage  of the lord of
creation  himself; whose intellectual  superiority  cannot,
therefore, be derived from an  excess in the bulk of the ce-
rebral organ.
   And this leads me to make  a very few remarks on  the
modern science of Phrenology, which, in  its proper inter-
pretation, treats  of faculties  of the  human mind, and of
the organs by means of which they manifest themselves.
It further teaches us  that the brain is the seat of the mind,
and that it is a congeries of organs, each of which performs
its own separate and peculiar function.   These propositions
appear to me  to  be  physiological truths; but I allude  to
them on this occasion merely to put you on your  guard
against adopting too  hastily those minute details of the lo- 
16
calities and functions of supposed organs, which have of late
found so many and  such  zealous advocates.   For while it
is difficult to suppose that the brain, with all its varied and
beautiful  parts, acts throughout with  equal  impulse  on
every moral or intellectual emotion, let us be cautious how
we attempt to localize organs which are beyond our sight
and  reach, and  of  which the exact position  can only
be  ascertained  by  numberless comparisons, and  these
made without reference  to the preconceived opinions of
other men, no matter how highly we may respect their love
of truth and accuracy.
  Let us next glance af man as the inhabitant of every
climate, with the power of subsisting on every species  of
aliment.   We find him not only living, but even flourish-
ing and  multiplying in every part of the kno\Vn world,
from the torrid regions beneath the equator, to the coldest
climes  in  the extreme north.  Thus, the Eskimaux and
Greenlander live beyond 70°  of north latitude,  wherein
mercury absolutely freezes.
  The power which man possesses of enduring cold ap-
pears yet more remarkable, when we consider the degree
of heat which he can also sustain; for whole tribes and
nations in the inter-tropical regions, live in an atmosphere
which  is frequently heated to  more than 100° of Fahren-
heit, and this for days and weeks together; while the ther-
mometer occasionally rises much above that point.
  Since, then, observes Mr. Lawrence, the human frame
seems designed, as it certainly is, in fact, to bear every va-
riety of climate, it follows that  man must be omnivorous,
or capable of deriving his nourishment from every  kind  of
food.
  If animal diet was essential to the human economy,
China and India, now the most thickly peopled portions of
the globe, would of necessity be very sparsely inhabited.
These nations, as is  well known, live almost exclusively on
rice; and yet they enjoy remarkably uniform health, are 
                           17

 capable of much fatigue, and live to  a good age.   Some
 savage tribes of our own country live for months of the
 year on roots alone; yet these unfortunate people have all
 the physical attributes of the  cognate tribes.   Nay, more :
 the philosophic traveller, Von Humboldt, met with a peo-
 ple called Ottomacs, living on the  shores of the Orinoco,
 who, he  assures us, are  compelled by  the  scantiness of
 food to live for several weeks and even months of the
 year- chiefly on an unctuous clay Avhich contains some nu-
 tritive  properties, and  serves the purposes of life.   This
 seems for a moment, beyond our credence ; yet upon how
 little aliment the human body can be  nourished and sus-
 tained, even amid the greatest  privations, has been often
 brought to the test of painful experiment  in some of those
 polar expeditions, which have formed a remarkable feature
 in the history of the present century. Men have been com-
 pelled,  in the extremity of famine, to eat  their very shoes,
 and have found in them sufficient sustenance to sustain life,
 and toil and fatigue, for many days together.
   If we next regard the most northern tribes of both  conti-
 nents, we find them living exclusively on  animal food, and
 this in a most gluttonous quantity, and in  the most disgust-
 ing condition.  The Eskimaux and the Kamschatkans, the
 Ostiaks, Samoides and  other polar nations, eat their  food
 raw or half cooked, with equal indifference.   And of what
 does this food consist ?  The flesh  of seals, the blubber of
 whales, and the visceral parts of various  marine  ani-
 mals, and often in a state of absolute decomposition.   Yet
 this diet is not only suited to their palates but adapted to
 their  digestion;  for on  it they thrive well, grow fat, enjoy
 life, and are capable of undergoing a degree of fatigue and
 privation which to us would be appalling indeed.
  Further  to  the south, yet still in a comparatively inhos-
 pitable  latitude, the Norwegians are seen to grind the bark
 of  certain  trees for  the purpose of mixing it with their
scanty allowance of oat-meal or barley; and yet these very
3 
                          18
                       •
people are scarcely surpassed in health, strength or longev-
ity, by any other inhabitants of Europe.
  In further proof of the omnivorous nature of man, we
have only to regard the civilised communities of which we
ourselves form a part.  Look at  the  multiplied varieties of
animal and vegetable food which are every day exhibited
in our markets, and displayed upon our tables.  All nature
is taxed to provide this infinite diversity of aliments.  The
earth, the sea,  the  air,—each is ransacked  to contribute
something to this grand and necessitous requisition of our
nature.   Then look again at the  multiform culinary opera-
tions to which these various articles  of diet are subjected,
and we are compelled to  admit that man is omnivorous in
the broadest  sense  of the word.  The truth is,  he must
be fed.   He rises  in  the morning, whether from his hard
and unyielding bed, or from his downy couch, and his first
impulse is that of hunger.  Whether he works or lives in
idleness; whether he  fights or philosophises; whether he
tills the  earth, or writes romances, he must, he  must be
fed.

         Hunger !  Thou art in truth a god, to whom
         Men render homage.  Daily dost thou drive
         Thy famished legions forth, to toil, or beg,
         Or rob.  Who dares contend with thee ? Not one.
         Life is a strife for  bread.

  And when we reflect  that eight hundred millions of hu-
man beings feel this daily necessity for food, a  necessity
which cannot be postponed nor compromised by any crafty
subterfuges, how stupendous does that provision appear,
which is adequate to the wants of so vast a family!
  But although man, as we have observed, is capable of
living on any or all  kinds of food;  although  his  aliments
are, in some regions, necessarily limited to  a very few arti-
cles, and these  exclusively of the vegetable or of the ani- 
19
mal kingdom,—yet his  mind and body are most perfectly
developed when his diet is of a duly mixed character, and
adapted to those ever-varying conditions of repose and ac-
tivity to which he is by  nature subject.
  The lower animals have their prescribed localities, their
native haunts, their own essential range of climate.  What
would be the condition  of the polar bear if placed under
the equator, or the lion  if removed to the  perpetual snows
of the arctic circle ?  Each would become paralyzed and
powerless, and  sink at once into  imbecility and death.
Such, also, would be the fate of every other animal, if re-
moved from  its native  haunts  and influences, and placed
in others which are adverse  to its nature.  But what is the
latitude essential to man ? What are the limits of his range?
He has  no limits.   Spreading his  sails on every sea, he
explores every region, he  pitches his tent in every clime,
he braves every variety of physical circumstance.   Led by
the incentives of commerce, lured by the  hope of  gain, or .
seduced by the love of glory, he traverses the burning de-
serts of Africa, or pursues the  sea-monsters in the icy re-
gions of the pole.  He  hunts the tiger for pastime on  the
plains of  India, and the buffalo for food on the prairies of
the far west.   He grapples with the ocean tempest, and
plays with the winds of Heaven; and he even contends
with  the grim  messenger of death amidst the fumes of
plague and pestilence, and turns  aside  the shaft that was
aimed at the bosom of his fellow  man.
   Connected with this  department of our subject, let us
next  advert  briefly to  the immense preponderance of the
moral and intellectual  faculties in man; those  godlike at-
tributes which  place him on the  pinnacle of creation, and
convince him, as he looks down on the herd of inferior ani-
mals, that there is, indeed, a gulf between him and them.
It is not for me, in this place, to dwell on these deeply in-
teresting considerations; yet when we consider them in con-
nexion with the gift of speech,  and note the beautiful and
elaborate results of human thought,—the ideality of Homer, 
20
 the philosophy of Franklin,—the combination of clear per-
 ception and prompt action in the immortal Washington,—
 when we reflect on the mighty genius that could conceive
 the Pyramids and  the Parthenon,—or last, not least, when
 we contemplate that spirit of benevolence which character-
 izes the mind of man, and behold it directed to the mitiga-
 tion of human ills, the suppression of human wrongs, and
 the general welfare of the human species, are we not com-
 pelled to admit that Man, with all his faults, with all his
 manifold  and glaring imperfections, possesses within him a
 spark of that Diviner Essence, which, if cultivated and  cher-
 ished, approximates. in degree to  Divinity itself?   Yet as
 this question would involve a more  extended discussion
 than our time will admit of, I can only glance at it in very
 general terms.  In the first place, then, we are struck with
 the fact, that the northern portions of both hemispheres are
 much more favourable to mental development, than the
 corresponding southern latitudes; and  that the inter-tropical
 regions, as Dr. Lakey has shown, may be included within
 the limits of this remarkable exception.   In  those regions
 of perpetual summer, wherein the. mind luxuriates in indo-
 lence and sensuality, the depressing  and  continued  heat
 tends to throw a languor over the human frame, alike un-
 favourable to  mental culture and to physical activity.  In
 vain we look, in these burning dimes, for exalted manifes-
 tations of intellect, whether shown in mechanical ingenuity,
 in mathematical research, in philosophical inquiry, or in the
 more seductive themes of poesy and song.   I must, of
 course, make exceptions for the peninsular regions of India
 and Arabia, which lying in the northern section of the tor-
rid zone, present an approximation, though still remote, to
 the  mightier genius of the people beyond the Tropic.
  You may, perhaps, inquire  respecting Egypt—the cradle
of civilisation—the mother of the arts. But it is a curious fact,
I might say, coincidence, that  the line of the northern tropic
passes a little to the south of the island of Philoe, (which was 
21
the boundary between Egypt and Nubia,) thus placing the
whole of the proper Egyptian territory within the limits of
the north temperate zone.  If we direct our attention yet
further south to Ethiopia, we find, it is true, temples, tombs,
and pyramids; but these,  although  more in number, are
much less  in magnitude than those  mightier monuments
which shadow the valley of the Nile from Philoe to the Delta.
Again, Ethiopia was for ages a subject province or depen-
dency of Egypt, and perhaps derived from the latter country,
her arts, her language, and her religion.  In the  south tem-
perate zone, notwithstanding the milder nature of  the cli-
mate, and  the seeming adaptation of the  country, to the
wants and  the impulses of humanity, what do we behold ?
In New Holland, the lank,  ferocious,  and  denuded savage,
the feeble intelligence, the  mere  glimmer of the reasoning
mind.   In  Africa,  the wretched  and  brutalized Hottentot,
yet more degraded,, if possible, than the Australian himself,
and constituting the lowest natural link in the scale of the ra-
tional creation. If,  again, we turn our eyes to Terra del Fue-
go, the southern extreme of our  own continent,  we  see an-
other series of similar phenomena, all tending to prove that
man in those regions is mentally and morally inferior to him
of the inter-tropical latitudes ; while both fall below the type
of mind as seen in those happier climes which lie north of
the tropic of cancer.
  But while much is due to climate,  even more  is attribu-
table to those primeval attributes of mind, which, for wise
purposes, have given our race a decided and unquestiona-
ble superiority over all the  nations of the  earth. Was this
not the case, the numberless hordes of the Mongolians of
Asia, would long since have exterminated the  Caucasian
race from Europe ; and the very religion  which we pro-
fess would ere now have been replaced by those unhallowed
rites, and that multiform idolatry,  which are justly abhorrent
to christianized  man.   Was, it  not  for this same  mental
superiority, these  happy climes which we now  inhabit
would yet be possessed by the wild and untutored Indian, 
22
and  that soil which now rejoices the hearts of millions of
freemen, would be yet overrun by lawless  tribes of con-
tending Barbarians.  Thus it is that the white race  has
been able to plant and to sustain its  colonies in  every re-
gion of the habitable earth.
  In Asia, in Africa, in America, in  the torrid and  in  the
frigid zones, have not all the  other  races of men yielded
and given place  to  this  one ?  In the  Mongolian  family
civilization was early, its progress was slow, and its degree
is fixed.  What  it has been for ages, it  is now.  But the
Caucasian stock, as seen  in the Egyptians, the Chaldeans,
the Greeks, the Romans,  in the various nations of southern
Europe, and of  later time  in the  Anglo-Saxon race to
which we ourselves belong, has marched onwards from  one
degree of cultivation and refinement  to  another, which the
other races have never  approached,  nor are likely, in  the
ordinary course of events, ever to realise.
   I have ventured thus to bring these collateral  views in
bold  relief before you, because, coming as you do from va-
rious and distant parts of our own and of foreign countries,
I wish. to impress upon you the importance  of Anthropol-
ogy—the natural history of man—as a study and recreation of
your leisure hours.   We all need that occasional relaxation
which is derived from  sources unconnected directly with
 our professional pursuits.  Let us bestow a part, at least,
 of this leisure on those  inquiries  which  tend  to  make us
 more familiar with the  differences observable in the physi-
cal, moral  and intellectual character  of our species, remem-
 bering the just and beautiful sentiment of the poet:
            " The noblest study of mankind is Man."
   With these few, fugitive, and  for the most part familiar
 illustrations of a highly important subject, I turn for a mo-
 ment, and in conclusion, to  another, in which we all feel, I
 trust, a common and engrossing interest.
   No calling of which  man is capable, gives more scope
 to honest ambition than our own ; and  perhaps it is  not 
23
assuming too much to say,  that  no profession does more
good with less ostentation.  It is true that a  physician is
not without the hope  of  professional reward for the toils
and anxieties to which he is daily subjected.  But over and
above all this, is he not habitually performing acts of prac-
tical benevolence, of which the world sees  nothing, and
which may be said to be known only in Heaven !  While
thousands  are devoted to  song and dance  and convivial
joys, while others are wrapt in slumber, all unconscious of
the griefs of humanity, while the streets are thronged  with
the busy hum of multitudes who are passing to and fro in-
tent on business or pleasure,—during  all this diversity of
human occupations and impulses, where, where, I ask, is
the Physician?  He is in the silent chamber  of the sick
and  miserable ;  he  is found where  the midnight  lamp
burns feebly, an emblem of that, life which is passing away
beneath the pressure  of disease and pain.  He stands by
the couch of the afflicted ; he administers the soothing cud
and mitigating draught to those who cry aloud for help. He
interposes, as it were, between life and death; and, aided
by the providence of  God, he  heals the sick; he  gives
sight to the blind; he  makes the lame  to walk, and res-
cues his fellow  man from the grasp of death and  from
the yawning grave.
   Is there not something sacred in that vocation which can
 thus fly to the rescue of oppressed and  expiring nature ?
 which can mitigate the wasting paroxysms of disease and
 pain, and which soothes the last sad moments of existence,
 until the eye has ceased to  regard the things of earth ?  Is
 that not an ennobling trust which admits man to the con-
 fiding revelations of agonised humanity ?  Which bares to
 his view the bleeding heart, the secret sorrow, the consum-
 ing grief, of which the busy world knows nothing?  And
 which, in the stronger language  of antiquity, permits him
 to mingle, without  distrust, among the household  gods of
 his fellow men?
   Our  profession, gentlemen, is  not the study  of a few 
24
 short years; for these can only lead us to the threshold, as
 it were, of that temple whose light is our guide, and whose
 honours are our aim; but it requires faithful attention, and
 assiduous devotion from day to day, from month to month,
 from year to year, as long as life continues; and yet, after
 all that we see, after all that we learn, we may have to ac-
 knowledge, with the humility of true philosophy, that much
 that we had sought has  been veiled from our view—much
 that we had desired  has  never been realised.   But while
 our art is thus beset with disappointments, it is not without
 its  certainties, which abundantly requite  the toil of those
 who steadfastly devote themselves to its manifold and en-
 grossing requisitions.
   In  the year 1813, while I was yet a child, the solemn
 toll of the church bell announced that a spirit had been
 called to its long home, and truly the mourners  went about
 the streets.   Men met at their  accustomed resorts, and
 spoke with mingled grief and admiration of one who was
 then no more.  The sick man sorrowed in his sleepless bed,
 and the voice of lamentation arose  to heaven from  the
 chambers of the afflicted.  He who had  been to  them a
 good  Samaritan—a ministering angel—blending the  pro-
 foundest knowledge of his profession with that confiding
 cheerfulness which  grows  out of the practice of every
 Christian virtue—he, alas ! was dead.  Who was he whose
 death thus cast the mantle of gloom over a whole commu-
 nity, and whose unsullied fame is the pride and glory of a
 nation ?  That man was Dr. BENJAMIN RUSH.

                Clarum et venerabile noraen.
  Despising the seductive paths of empiricism,  he paid no
 homage at the shrine of Mammon.  He honored that pro-
 fession which,  to the  latest posterity, will  render back  ho-
nour to him.  Emulate, then, this illustrious example of a Phy-
 sician and a Man; and  by so doing, rest assured that you
will consecrate your names in the Temple of Science, and
 on the Tablets of Immortality.