605 Sheet – American State Trials 1918 Volume X Leo Frank Document

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Reading Time: 4 minutes [540 words]

Here is the translated text as follows:

ALEXANDER WHISTELO

573

I take this to be an exception; for if I have no knowledge of any matters which go positively to contradict the woman's testimony, I should naturally lean towards it. Do you consider this case as having any affinity with what is called albinism? I have not much experience on the subject of albinos, as my residence has been chiefly in New York, where such accidents rarely occur. But I have known instances of negroes turning white where there was no symptom of disease or sickness.

Mr. Morton: Have the goodness, doctor, to relate them.

(The witness then related the cases of Henry Moss and the negroes Maurice and Pompey.)

Some time in the year 1702, Henry Moss, who was born of black parents and as black himself as negroes generally are, began to grow white. The first whiteness began about the nails of the fingers; but in the course of the change, none of them have fallen off, except those of the little toes. There has been no scabbiness, ulceration, or falling off of the cuticle—nor could this covering be removed by rubbing, washing, or chafing. The whiteness has spread over the whole body, neck, shoulders, and arms, and down the thighs and legs. Some brownness remains in his face, hands, and feet. He thinks his sense of touch more acute than it used to be; and his feelings so sharpened, that he is more readily affected by the cold warmth than he formerly was, being able, while he was black, to support great degrees of sun-shining heat. A change has taken place in his sight. He has had no sickness before or during this alteration of color to account for it. The skin is of the white carnation hue, and the blue veins plainly visible through it. The rete mucosum seems to have undergone the principal change. His woolly hair is falling out, and straight hair coming in its place on his head; and the same thing has already happened on his legs. He observes his flesh is now less disposed to heal from wounds and cuts than it used to be.

A young negro, named Maurice, aged twenty-five years, began about seven years ago to lose his native color. A white spot appeared on the right side of his belly, which is now about as large as the palms of two hands. Another white spot has appeared on his breast, and several more on his arms and other parts; and the sable cloud is plainly disappearing on his shoulder. The skin of these fair spots is not surpassed by the European complexion. His general health is, and has been good; and he has suffered no scalding ulceration, scabbiness, or other local disease. The change is not the dead white of the albinos, but is a good wholesome carnation hue. Such an alteration of color as this militates powerfully against the opinion adopted by some modern philosophers, that the negroes are a different species of the human race from the whites, and tends strongly to corroborate the probability of the derivation of all the varieties of mankind from a single pair. Facts of this kind are of great value to the zoologist. How additionally singular.