From the Quarterly Review. 1. Diseases of the Human Hair. From the hide. Briefly, we say, and very imperfectly - for hair in an ethnological point of view is itself a very wide subject, and its adequate treatment would require a far longer paper than we at present contemplate. Dr. Prichard, in his laborious work on the different races of mankind, apportions to the melanic or dark-haired the greater portion of the habitable globe. Europe is the chief seat of the xantho-comic or light-haired races; indeed they seem to be almost confined to its limits, and within those limits to be cooped up in certain degrees of north latitude. manner nearly the whole of North Germany The indige From Norway and Sweden, following their sea-kings, the hardy fair-haired races poured their piratical hordes down the great overSINCE the world began hair has been an hanging peninsula, and as if from some yarduniversal vanity. Our young reader will arm thronged and dropped, boarding the great doubtless confess that, as his name is tossed European ship, whose more immediate defendup from landing to landing by imposing flun-ers fled in consternation before them. In this kies, he passes his hands carefully through his curls to give them the last flowing touch ere he enters the ball-room — while Mr. Layard, from out the royal palace buried by the Band-storms of thousands of years, has shown us what thorough "prigs were the remote Assyrians in the arrangement of their locks and beards. What applies to the male sex does so with double force to the women; and we have not the slightest doubt that Alcibiades fumed at the waste of many a half-hour whilst his mistress was "putting her hair tidy," or arranging the golden grasshopper. Not only as a means of ornament has the hair been seized upon by all classes and generations of our kind, but it has been converted into an index, as it were, of their religious and social opinions. The difference between the freeman and the slave was of old indicated by the length of the hair. In later times we all know how the Puritan rejoiced in a "polled" head, whilst the Cavalier flaunted about in exuberant curls; so at the present moment no tub-thumper would venture to address his "dearly beloved brethren" without having previously plastered his hair into pendant candle-ends. The fact of its being the only part of the body a man can shape and carve according to his fancy is sufficient to account for the constancy with which he has adopted it as his ensign of party and doctrine, and also for the multitudinous modes in which he has worn it. Leaving this part of the subject for a time, however, we will briefly consider those characteristics of hair which, taken broadly, art cannot modify nor fashion The chief features of the ethnological map of Europe were settled before the tenth century, and, especially as regards the disposition of the dark and light-haired races, it remains in the mass pretty much the same as then. Nevertheless, certain intermixtures have been at work shading off the original differences. At the present moment the fairest-haired inhabitants of the earth are to be found north of the parallel 48; this line cuts off England, Belgium, the whole of Northern Germany, and a great portion of Russia. Between the parallels 48 and 45 there seems to be a debateable land of dark brown hair, which includes northern France, Switzerland, and part of Piedmont, passes through Bohemia and Austria Proper, and touches the Georgian and necklace round the world, we find a dozen Circassian provinces of the Czar's empire. nations threaded upon it like so many partiBelow this line again, Spain, Naples, and colored beads. The European portion of the Turkey, forming the southern extremity of necklace is light-haired - whereas the Tarthe map, exhibit the genuine dark-haired tars, northern Mongols, and aboriginal races. So that, in fact, taking Europe broad-American Indians have black straight hair ly from north to south, its peoples present in and Canada breaks the chain once more with the color of their hair a perfect gradation the blond tresses of the Saxon. the light flaxen of the colder latitudes deep- That climate and food have some effect in ening by imperceptible degrees into the blue-modifying race, and with it hair as one of its black of the Mediterranean shores. To this most prominent signs, we do not deny; but regular gradation, however, there are some obvious exceptions. We have already noticed the dark tribes lingering within our own island the same is true as to the Celtic majority of the Irish; and even the Normans, as we now see them, are decidely ranked among the black-haired. these disturbing causes must act through a very long period of time to produce any marked effect, and certainly within the historical period we have no proof of a dark-haired people having become light, or vice versâ of flowing hair changing into woolly locks On the other Tom Moore's capital joke about the Irish nighand, Venice, which is almost southern ingers notwithstanding. latitude, has always been famous for the Having said that race determines the color golden beauty of its hair, beloved so of Titian and quality of the hair, we have said nearly and his school. These isolated cases, how-all that ethnology teaches upon the subject. ever, only prove the rule that race mainly An examination of its structure shows that determines, among other ethnological peculiarities, the color and texture of the hair. If latitude or temperature affected it materially, Taffy, Paddy, and Donald would by this time have been toned down pretty decently to the prevailing fair-headed type; if even there had been much mixture of the Celt with the Saxon, we should not see the former breed marked out by such a lump of darkness amidst the generally fair portion of the European map. The effect of the admixture of races is evidenced very strongly, we think, by comparing the inhabitants of the great capitals with the populations of their respective countries. London, the centre of the world, is neither fair nor dark-haired, but contains within itself all shades of color. Even so the Parisian no more represents the black-haired Norman or swart Breton than our cockney does the pure Saxon of the southern and western counties. Vienna is another example. What went on rapidly in such cities as these, has been progressing more slowly in those countries which form the highways of nations. Thus the brown hair of middle Europe is the neutral tint, which has naturally resulted from the admixture of the flaxen-haired races of the north with the old southern population. the difference of the color is entirely owing to the tinct of the fluid, which fills the hollow tube in each hair. This tinct or pigment shows through the cortical substance in the same manner that it does through the epidermis of a negro. Hair is in fact but a modification of the skin. The same might be said of feathers, horns and scales. Not improbably the distinguished lady now honoring these pages with her attention, will be shocked at hearing that her satin-soft shoulder is almost chemically identical with the plated and roughened mail of the crocodile- and she will hardly perhaps believe us when we inform her that her bird, when he sets right some erring feather with his beak, is acting with the same chemically composed instrument upon the same chemically composed material as Mademoiselle does when she disentangles with a comb her charming mistress' softly-flowing tresses. The fond lover again, as he kisses some treasured lock, will doubtless be disgusted when we tell him, that, apart from the sentiment, he might as well impress his fervent lips upon a pig's pettitoe, or even upon the famous Knob Kerry, made out of the horn of a rhinoceros, carried by the king of hunters, Mr. Roualleyn Gordon Cumming. If we open a wider map we only receive The hair, anatomically considered, is com ampler proof that race alone determines the posed of three parts the follicle or tubular color of the hair. Thus, taking the parallel depression in the skin into which the hair is of 51 north, and following it as it runs like a inserted— the bulb or root of the hair -and so the stalk or cortical part filled with pigment. | hairs individually; and, in all probability, A single hair, with its follicle, might be the scalps were pretty equal in weight. It roughly likened to a hyacinth growing from a is to the fineness and multiplicity of hairs that glass- - with this difference that the hair is blond tresses owe the rich and silk-like charsupplied with nutriment exclusively from acter of their flow -a circumstance which below. The bulb, which rests upon the retic- artists have so loved to dwell upon. ulated bed of capillary vessels of the cutis Shakspeare especially seems to have deand sub-cutaneous tissue, draws its pigment lighted in golden hair. "Her sunny locks cells or coloring matter directly from the hung on her temples like the golden fleece " blood — in like manner, the horny sheath is so Bassanio describes Portia in the Mersecreted directly from the capillaries chant of Venice. Again, in the two Gentlethat, unlike the hyacinth-plant; it grows at men of Verona, Julia says of Sylvia and herits root instead of at its free extremity. A self-"Her hair is auburn - mine is perfect hair is not, as it appears, a smooth cylindri-yellow." Twenty other passages will sugcal tube like a quill; on the contrary, it is gest themselves to every reader. Black hair made up of a vast number of little horny he only mentions twice throughout his entire laminæ ; or our reader might realize its plays, clearly showing that he imagined light structure to herself by placing a number of hair to be the peculiar attribute of soft and thimbles one within the other and, as she delicate women. A similar partiality for this adds to this column by supplying fresh thim- color, touched with the sun, runs, however, bles below, she might get a good notion of the through the great majority of the poets manner in which each hair grows, and will old Homer himself for one; and the best see that its oldest portion must be its free painters have seized, with the same instinct, extremity. upon golden tresses. A walk through any gallery of old masters will instantly settle this point. There is not a single female head in the National Gallery - beginning with those glorious "Studies of Heads,” the highBlack Hair. est ideal of female beauty by such an idealist 49-935 as Correggio, and ending with the full-blown 6-631 blondes of the prodigal Rubens: there is not a single black-haired female head among The pigment cells have been scrutinized by Carbon Hydrogen Nitrogen 49.345 50.622 6.576 6.613 17.936 17.936 Oxygen and sulph. 26.143 24.829 17.936 From this analysis it would appear that the beautiful golden hair owes its brightness to an excess of sulphur and oxygen with a deficiency of carbon, whilst black hair owes its jetty aspect to an excess of carbon and a deficiency of sulphur and oxygen. Vauquelin traces an oxide of iron in the latter, and also in red hair. The coloring matter, however, forms but one portion of the difference existing between the soft, luxuriant tangles of the Saxon girl and the coarse blue-black locks of the North American squaw. The size and quality of each hair, and the manner in which it is planted, tell powerfully in determining the line between the two races. One is struck, in passing along the streets, by the curiosities one sees in those armories of Venus, the hairdressers' windows. Whence come those magnificent head-dresses which the waxen dummies slowly display as they revolve? From what source issue those pendant tresses gleaming in the background, with which the blooming belle, aptly entangling their snaky coil with her own, tempts our eligible Adams? Who are they that denude themselves of coal-black locks, that she who can afford a price may shore up her tottering beauty? Alas! free-trading England, even for her hair, has to depend upon the foreigner. Among the many curious occupations of Another eminent German has undergone the metropolis is that of the human-hair the enormous labor of counting the number merchant. Of these there are many, and of hairs in heads of four different colors. In they import between them upwards of five a blond one he found 140,400 hairs; in a tons annually. Black hair comes mainly from brown, 109,440; in a black, 102,962; and in a red one, 88,740. What the red and black heads wanted in number of hairs, was made up, however, in the greater bulk of the Brittany and the South of France, where it is collected principally by one adventurous virtuoso, who travels from fair to fair, and buys up and shears the crops of the neighboring What surprised me more than all, by the singularity and novelty of the thing, were the operations of the dealers in hair. In various parts of the motley crowd there were three or four different purchasers of this commodity, who travel the country for the purpose of attending the fairs and buying the tresses of the peasant girls. They have particularly fine hair, and frequently in the greatest abundance. I should have thought that female vanity would have effectually prevented such a traffic as this being carried to any extent. But there seemed to be no difficulty in finding possessors of beautiful heads of hair perfectly willing to sell. We saw several girls sheared, one after the other, like sheep, and as many more standing ready for the shears, with their caps in their hands, and their long hair combed out, and hanging down to their waists. Some of the operators were men, and some women. By the side of the dealer was placed a large basket, into which every successive crop of hair, tied up into a wisp by itself, was thrown. No doubt the reason of the indifference to their tresses, on the part of the fair Bretonnes, is to be found in the invariable "mode" which covers every head, from childhood upwards, with close caps, which entirely prevents any part of the hair from being seen, and of course as totally conceals the want of it. The money given for the hair is about 20 sous, or else a gaudy cotton handkerchief — they net immense profits by their trips through the country. tury, and that the great intercourse since the war with southern nations has deepened by many tints the predominating Saxon blond of our forefathers. The same intelligent prompter assured us that any one accustomed to deal in hair could tell by smell alone the difference between German and French haircould discriminate between Irish, Scotch, nay, that he himself "when his nose was in" Welsh, and English hair! The destination of the imported article is of course principally the boudoirs of our fashionable world, and the glossy ringlets which the poor peasant girl of Tours parted with for a few sous, as a nestegg towards her dowry, have doubtless aided in procuring" a suitable helpmate" for some blue spinster or fast Dowager of Mayfair. Wigs of course absorb some portion of the spoil—and a cruel suspicion rises in our mind that the Comical artists of this our Babylon do not confine themselves to the treasured relics intrusted to their care, but that many a sorrowing relative kisses without suspicion mementoes eked out from hair that grew not upon the head of the beloved one. -an The pure whiteness of the hair in Albinos is owing to the perfect absence of pigment absence which extends itself to the choroid coat of the eye and also to the iris. This condition of non-development, which amounts to a physical defect in man, seems to be the normal condition of many animals such as white bears, white mice, white rabbits, and white weasels in which the pink eye denotes a total lack of coloring matter; whilst white feathers and hairs are very common among birds and animals, and in many of them indeed this color or rather negative of color is constant. -- This hair is the finest and most silken black hair that can be procured. Light hair all comes from Germany, where it is collected by The gray hair of age and debility in the a company of Dutch Farmers, who come over human subject results, it is supposed, from a for orders once a year. It would appear that withdrawal of the pigment cells. We feel either the fashion or the necessity of England that we are now touching upon a part of our has, within a recent period, completely altered subject that becomes personal to not a few of the relative demands from the two countries. our most respected readers. Many a viveur Forty years ago, according to one of the first who has taken no note of time is suddenly in the trade, the light German hair alone was startled by the discovery, as he shaves, of a called for, and he almost raved about a pefew hairs - 66 gray pursuivants of Death"culiar golden tint which was supremely prized, and he eradicates the tell-tales with anything and which his father used to keep very close, but an agreeable sensation. Our Parisian only producing it to favorite customers, in the friends, who seem to be profoundly afflicted same manner that our august sherry-lord, or at the appearance of the first snows of age, hock-herr spares to particular friends or have organized a diligent army of young girls now and then, it is said, to influential literary to war against decay, and to wrest from Time characters- a few magnums of some rare the fatal ensigns he plants upon our brow. and renowned vintage. This treasured arti- The Salons Epilatoires, where youth pays this cle he sold at ... an ounce-nearly double little attention to age for an inconceivably the price of si.ver. Now all this has passed small sum, usually hang out" Plus de Chevaway - and the da saades of brown from eux Gris" - and indeed of late we observe France are chicuy called for. Our informant, London advertisements beginning with "No venturing boldly into a subject wherewith more Gray Hairs." White hair, however, is ethnologists fear to tackle, delivers it as his not necessarily the slow work and certain opinion that the color of the hair of English mark of age. Some persons become gray very people has changed within the last half-cen-young; we believe that many in the prime vigor of life are suddenly blanched from the effect of terror, or some other great mental disturbance. Marie Antoinette's hair, it seems to be allowed, turned gray in the night preceding her execution. A case came lately under our own observation, in which a soldier, in order to escape the service, malingered in a hospital for three months, feigning rheumatism, and such was his anxiety to keep up the deception (which was, however, completely penetrated by his medical attendant) that he turned perfectly gray, although quite a young man. In these cases of emotion, it is supposed that the blood sends some fluid among the pigment of the hair, which at once discharges its color. In some, though very rare instances, persons have been born with patches of white hair, and there is at present in the Museum of Natural History at Paris a portrait of a piebald negro, in which the hair of the head presents very much the parti-colored appearance of the wigs exposed in the windows, half black and white, as specimens of the power of the various hair-dyes. are oftener bald than other of our heroic defenders. Hair, the universal vanity, has of course been seized upon universally by quacks—it has proved to them indeed the true Golden Fleece. Science, as though such a subject were beneath its attention, has left the care of the most beautiful ornament of the body in the hands of the grossest charlatans. M. Cazenave is the only scientific person who has ever treated at any length of the hair, or has shown, by the light of physiology, what art is capable of doing, and what it is powerless to do, in cases of disease and baldness. Those who understand how the hair is nourished can but smile at the monstrous gullibility of the public in putting such faith in the puffs and extracts of the hair-reviewers. Really, the old joke of the power of a certain preparation to restore the bald places in hair-trunks and in worn-out boas, has become a popular working belief. There is one fact which every one should know, and which would be suffcient to rout at once all the trash with which Women are quite as often gray as men, but people load their heads. The blood is the from baldness they are almost entirely exempt. only Macassar of the hair, the only oil which This is owing in a great measure to the larger can with truth be said to "insinuate its baldeposit of fat in the female scalp, which al- samic properties into the pores of the head,' lows of a freer circulation in the capillaries of &c. &c. Oils and pomades may for a time the skin. Eunuchs, who possess much sub- moisten and clog the hair, but over its growth cutaneous fat in this part, are never bald. or nourishment they are absolutely powerless. The scalp of a bald man is singularly smooth The fine network of vessels on which the and ivory-like in texture; a fact which Chau- bulbs of the hair rest is alone capable of maincer noticed in the Friar — His crown it taining its healthy existence. To a sluggishshon like any glass." This denseness of tex-ness in the capillary circulation baldness is ture in the skin is owing to the destruction mainly due; when this sluggishness is the of the bulbs of the hair and the closure of the result of a general failure of the system, confollicles; any attempt to reproduce the natu- sequent upon age, as we have said before, no ral covering of the head on such surfaces will art will avail the inevitable Deliah proprove quite hopeless. From some cause or ceeds unchallenged with her noiseless shears. other, baldness seems to befall much younger When, on the contrary, baldness proceeds men now than it did thirty or forty years ago. from any temporary cause - when the bulb A very observant hatter informed us, a short still remains intact slight friction with a time since, that he imagined much of it was rough towel or a brush, aided by some gently owing to the common use of silk hats, which, irritating pomade, is the only course to be from their impermeability to the air, keep the pursued. Dupuytren, who made baldness the head at a much higher temperature than the subject of a chapter in his great work on Skin old beaver structures; which, he also informed Diseases, gives the following receipt, which us, went out principally because we had used seems to us calculated to produce the desired up all the beavers in the Hudson's Bay Com-result-to promote capillary circulation, and pany's territories. The adoption of silk hats a consequent secretion of the materials of has, however, given them time, it seems, to replenish the breed. This fact affords a singular instance of the influence of fashion upon the animals of a remote continent. It would be more singular still if the silk-hat theory of baldness has any truth in it, as it would then turn out that we were sacrificing our own natural nap in order that the beaver might recover his. Without endorsing the speculative opinion of our hatter, we may, we believe, state it as a well ascertained circumstance that soldiers in helmetted regiments CCCCLXIX. LIVING AGE. VOL. I. 23 hair-growth: R. Purified beef-tallow 3 viij. 3j. 3 iij. 5j. Tinct. of cantharides, We do not see why internal applications should not be tried, and we are not at all certain that gelatine soups and pills made of the ashes of burnt hair might not be effectual in |
