DARK AND LIGHT SKINS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11370, 1 September 1908, Page 6

DARK AND LIGHT SKINS

(To the Editor of the Herald.) Sir, — I' notice that some discussion has arisen over the asserted liability of Maori children to skin diseases. It appeared to me at the time that the first assertion was made — the assertion that Maori children were subject to skin diseases in- a -. greater degree than are white children — that the person who said' so offered no proof of his statement, which could only be made on scientific observation. L have not yet seen much of Maori children, haying Tesided for so short a time in New Zealand: What I have seen disposes me to believe that they ar© less liable to skin diseases than are white children. I Qiave travelled much and' seen many people with dark skins., from the lightest brown to the polished "stove-pipe" black, and so far as I have observed the skin is 1 a strong point of health in. the dark races. Tlie Nubians, for instance, who are the finest men I have ever seen, have most wonderfully soft and healthy skins, and never have skin diseases, whereas the lighter-colored races, are, in my opinion, as a traveller and 1 a medical man, infinitely more subject to skin diseases, parasitic and otherwise. The Maori children run more risk of catching skin j diseases from the whites than vice versa, I I think. — I am, etc.. I GERARD SMITH.