A DOUBLE ORIGIN OF MANKIND?

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 73, 19 December 1919, Page 7

A DOUBLE ORIGIN OF MANKIND?

THE AFFINITY OF PEOPLES. A paper of remarkable interest has been contributed to the "Lancet" by two workers who availed themselves of Ihe fact that representatives of many races of the world were gathered together in .Macedonia duriuK the war, to apply certain • blood tests designed to reveal the affinities existing between peoples. Those tests derann On the fact that the blood conmscles of one individual are destroyed or "nßsrlntiiintP.d" by the blood fluids of another, except, it is said, in cases of consamminitv.

.H «•«:! found that two properties, A and IS, «cru present with vnrinblo frenuencv in Ihe bloods of different races, and that .these frequencies presented n rraulnr uraoation from the peoples of Tiarth-WVtern Europe, through those of Urn south-eastern part of tho Continent down to Ihe rnce,s or Asia and Africa. English and French appear at one end of the list with "a preponderance of property A," and the Annnmose and Indians, with a preponderance of l>, bring up the opnosite end. TliP order of the list is elated to be in accordance with ft topographical, rather thnii an ethnological, principle. A double oricin of the human race is siiascsted by IW writers as a result of this work. Tho "Lancet" utters «v warning ngainst hastv conclusions founded unnn any but a suDPrlativply careful . technique, and suggests tluit the writers must be nraiwral for criticism in this direction "Rut, the pare: , is nevertheless of deep interest.