Abstract
CONCLUSIONS of some considerable interest to physical anthropologists and students of questions of race are drawn by Prof. V. Suk of the Anthropological Department of Masaryk University, Brno, from the results of work on racial immunity on the basis of the precipitin test (Act. Soc. Sci. Nat. Moraviae, 8, fasc. 4, sig. 5). The authors objective was the differentiation by biological experiments between micro-or meso-diacritical races and the fully established pan-or macro-diacritical races. The material for sera and anti-sera was derived from Eskimo, Kalmuk, Nordic (Slovakia and Bohemia), Baltic, Alpine (Czech), Gipsies and Jews. Four hundred and five experiments, with eight dilutions, thus giving more than three thousand precipitations, were made. Without going into details, it may be said that the highest degree of reaction was given by the compared Eskimo-Kalmuk groups, hence regarded as pan-diacritical and fully established races, and the lowest by Jew-Nordic. On the basis of his results, Prof. Suk enters into a discussion of racial types at some length, taking into account, in particular, the work of Keith, Parsons and of Ruggles Gates on Amerindian crosses in Canada. He offers the opinion that the various groups among Europeans are not fully established races, but inconstant variations in process of making, while the modern racial history of Europe shows no visible trend to develop types such as Nordic, Dinaric, Alpine, etc., into true races, but rather to form new groups, according to geographical distribution, such as English, North American, German, Italian, and so forth. It is regarded as doubtful if such groups will ever attain the status of true races. The present investigation seems to show that all these types are of one stock and that Europeans in general are a very old variation of the species Homo.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Race and the Precipitin Test. Nature 132, 94 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132094a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132094a0