Sent from Karl Pearson
18 Jun 1911
Description:

‘... The university have offered me the Galton Chair & I have got to settle in the next ten days whether I will accept it or no. It is not quite straightforward. If a man gets at the truth in many of these Eugenics problems he is sure to irritate people & the post will be found, I fear, a difficult one. Also after 25 years of one type of life, it is difficult to change & attempt another. I cannot do it, if it involves leaving University College & all my old links there, and that remains to be settled.

However it may (not certainly, as there will be much organizing work at starting!) mean more leisure, and I can, perhaps, get all these unfinished things done.

Many thanks for the dog hamper safely received. I am sending you a cheque for £1.1 - I am sure it won’t cover your expenses re: Jack’s visit, and I don’t want you to be much out of pocket in the matter. One further point. You will remember we found certain ticks or lice in Tong when she first came to us & had some difficulty in exterpating [sic] them? We have just found them again in Ling & Wee Tang. I thought I ought to tell you as Jack may have carried them off with him, although we did not notice that he had any trouble when he was here.

I am not able yet to say whether Wee Tong will have pups or not. I am very glad you are taking the albino dogs in hand. You would see a thorough[ly] stupid notice of the Albinism in the British Medical Journal? Although we directly say in the preface that there will be chapters on the coat & eye in albino lower animals, the writer expresses regret that we are not dealing with albino animals! I feel that a great deal of caution should be used at present in saying that these dogs are differentiated by incompleteness from other albinos either in man or the lower animals. Their hair does not differ from complete human albinism in any respect; there is no granular pigment, there is diffused pigment, clinically, their eyes are completely albinotic, i.e. a man with such eyes showing externally no pigment, and such marked red reflex, would be called a complete albino. We have not got microscopic sections of the whole albinotic human eye at present to be certain how far in the human albinotic eye there is complete absence of pigment. In the African human albino with completely albinotic hair & apparently completely albinotic skin there is ocular pigment much like in the case of Tong. We ought to know soon about Tong’s skin. Have you seen her eye sections yourself? It would be very desirable to have sketches of them in comparison with normal eyes.

Only these notes on your proposed draft, which seems quite good. I will send you the rough draft of the pedigree.

I think you ought to define what you mean by “colour”. All human albinos have more or less of the same “colour” that you find in these dogs – the fundamental distinction is the absence of granular pigment. So far we have only found the doubtful granules in the first hair from Betty’s tail, in no other albino dog’s hair.

Yours always sincerely,

Karl Pearson.’