[handwritten] 5 material of our family histories is as complete and correct as it is possible [inserted from margin] at the present time[end insert] for such a series to be, and that average statistical results drawn from it may be trusted with full confidence. When we turn to published matter the weight we give must of course by proportional to the authority of the writer, the date at which he wrote and the object of his communication. Many, even fairly early, accounts are clearly written with knowledge and caution, of others this can hardly be asserted; but even in the best the desire to fully describe a rather noteworthy abnormality predominates over the curiosity as to a complete family record. A great deal of the earlier interest in albinism arose from the importation into Europe of albinistic negroes, and in such cases as well as in the reported slave cases in America but little could be actually ascertained as to family history. Even a good deal of the excitement their appearance produced we undoubtedly due to theological reasons, and the confirmation they were supposed to give to an original [underscore]white[end underscore] parent for the whole human race[superior symbol]. Further in a great number of the early [obscured] cases of so-called partial or [illegible] albinism in negroes we find that the congenital condition is not carefully distinguished from acquired [illegible]. There [page-width score] [superior symbol, for footnote]Adam & Eve being [underscore]a priori[end underscore] assumed to be white; the white negro was looked upon as a reversion to ancestral stock, the absence of a black [torn off] white stock [torn, obscured] [end]