of the Ethnological Soc. 1870, vol. ii. p. 16.
Several trustworthy observers have assured me that they have
seen on the faces of negroes an appearance resembling a blush,
under circumstances which would have excited one in us, though their
skins were of an ebony-black tint. Some describe it as blushing brown,
but most say that the blackness becomes more intense. An increased supply
of blood in the skin seems in some manner to increase its blackness;
thus certain exanthematous diseases cause the affected places in the negro
to appear blacker, instead of, as with us, redder.[16] The skin, perhaps,
from being rendered more tense by the filling of the capillaries,
would reflect a somewhat different tint to what it did before.
That the capillaries of the face in the negro become filled with blood,
under the emotion of shame, we may feel confident; because a perfectly
characterized albino negress, described by Buffon,[17] showed a faint
tinge of crimson on her cheeks when she exhibited herself naked.
Cicatrices of the skin remain for a long time white in the negro,
and Dr. Burgess, who had frequent opportunities of observing a scar of this
kind on the face of a negress, distinctly saw that it "invariably became
red whenever she was abruptly spoken to, or charged with any trivial
offence.
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