Baldness

“ The want of cleanliness of the barbers, and the custom of using public combs and brushes at hotels, clubs and entertainments accounts for nine tenths of the baldness in the world. Barbers’ brushes bear the germs of baldness and badness from scalp to scalp, and their infected fingers rub it in. ”

“ I explained, "for any degree of baldness you provide remedies by the hundreds. You offer to invigorate the hair, to dress it, to bring it up in the way it should go, and to produce it in any quantity. ”

“ Excessive anxiety or grief, and intense study and thoughtfulness, also tend to promote the early decay of the hair. The natural baldness of the aged, and frequently the premature baldness of earlier years, arises from the gradual attenuation of the scalp, which ultimately becomes too thin to afford room for the performance of the functions of the hair-producing organs, and too scantily supplied with blood for their due nutrition and support. ”

“ Baldness is not by any means confined to the male sex, for females, through illness, accouchements, neuralgic pains in the head, constitutional weakness, frequent head-aches, tying the hair improperly, overmuch crimping, and other causes—frequently experience a loss of hair. True, this can easily be concealed by means of headdresses, bows, ribbons, flowers, lace, and so forth, but young and middle-aged ladies do not find it convenient to have recourse to such artifices at all times. ”

“ All classes are likely to be more or less troubled with baldness, for it makes its mark in a variety of ways. Sometimes the hair recedes from the brow, giving the appearance of a very high forehead, at other times it only attacks the crown. ”

“ The hairs on the affected areas are involved early in the disease, becoming lustreless, dry, brittle, twisted, breaking off close to the skin, with their free extremities ragged and uneven, having a gnawed or nibbled look. They are easily extracted, or often break off within the follicles, appearing then as blackish dots. A variable degree of baldness occurs, which, however, is rarely permanent. ”

“ I have never seen a case of complete baldness among women of any age; partial baldness is rare, even among sexagenarians, while the large proportion of luxuriant suits of hair to be found among young women and girls would seem to indicate pretty clearly that, if baldness is to be a characteristic of the coming man, it will be one of those sexually limited variations, like hairy chins and guttural voices, that will not apply to the other sex. ”

“ Now, while the statistics at my disposal are too meager to warrant any definite conclusion, it is nevertheless a significant fact that out of a total of 1,196 males between the ages of ten and twenty, ten cases were reported as showing signs of baldness—that is, •0084, or over eight tenths of one per cent—while in a total of 1,374 females of the same age, but one single case is reported, or about •00073, a little over 7100 of one per cent. ”

“ I have never seen a person whose habitual head-covering was soft and yielding suffer from baldness. The agriculturist, whose habit it is to wear the loosest head-coverings during the greater part of his life, has usually more hair than is conducive to comfort; but his son who has taken to city life may be bald at thirty. I think it will be noticed that the most rapid cases are among city men with close-cut hair who wear the high hat. ”

“ Partial baldness among the female sex is not uncommon, but this defect can well be concealed by coverings specially made for the purpose. These pieces of ingenious workmanship, be they frontlets, scalpettes, fringes, partings, twists, chignons, curls, plaits, or what not, are easily and securely attached to the natural hair-growth, while a ribbon-bow, feather, flower, lace, cap, or other decoration lends a charm, and completes the coiffure. ”

“ Hardly ever turning aside to praise or blame, he says with almost unqualified baldness a multitude of astounding things—things we half knew, or guessed, or longed to have explained, or dared not whisper, or, most of all, never dreamt of. ”

“ The chief cause of baldness is pressure of the hat, which constricts the blood vessels and so interferes with the nutrition of the hair bulbs. It is probable, also, that the shutting off of air and light by the hat promotes baldness. An unhealthy condition of the scalp results, the sign of which is an excess of dandruff.
Baldness is almost unknown among savages, who wear no hats, and is comparatively rare with men in the tropics where very light hats are worn. Laborers are less prone to baldness than business or professional men. ”

“ Another German physician (named Müller—the German physician who is not named Müller has had a narrow escape) points out the increasing prevalence of baldness and declares it hereditary. That many human beings are born partly bald is not, I take it, what he means, but that the tendency to lose the hair early in life is transmitted from father to son. It is understood that the ladies have nothing to do with the matter; they are never bald, but the hair of none of them, I understand, is so long and thick as it once was. ”

“ Unless the experimenter has been in the habit of counting for this object, he will be surprised to learn that, in most of the Eastern cities, fully thirty per cent of the men over thirty years of age show unmistakable signs of baldness, while nearly twenty per cent have spots on their heads that are not only bald, but actually polished with the gloss that is supposed to belong to extreme old age alone. ”

“ The hair on the head grows scanty and sheds out to a greater extent and sooner than all the rest. But this remark applies only to hair in front; for no man ever gets bald at the back of his head. Smoothness on the top of the head is termed 'baldness', but smoothness on the eyebrows is denoted by a special term which means 'forehead-baldness'; and neither of these conditions of baldness supervenes in a man until he shall have come under the influence of sexual passion. For no boy ever gets bald, no woman, and no castrated man. ”

“ It is probable that another effect of the internal changes which produce baldness is a lessening of the resistance of the organism, so that the baldheaded man cannot stand the muscular exertion or the nervous strain of which the hairy-headed man is capable. ”

“ The development of the hair depends upon the activity of the skin, the nerves and the composition of the blood. The blood of dark-haired people is lacking in water and fat, but richer in albuminous matter. Poor quality of hair is indicative of living in bad air, poor nutrition of the skin, hard mental work, pain and sorrow. Sexual excesses during youth are often the cause of premature baldness and thin hair.
The eyes present a picture that manifests the general condition of the body, whether it be healthy, disposed to disease, or suffering from disease. ”

“ In other cases, when a disposition to baldness exists, shown by the hair falling off in large quantities, or ceasing to grow with its usual vigour and rapidity, the frequent but gentle use of the hair-brush, and of any bland stimulating oil, pomade, or wash, if adopted in time, will generally prove sufficient to arrest the progress of decay, and, very frequently, to restore the hair to its pristine condition. The head may be advantageously washed in cold water, at least once a day; or what is better, a shower bath may be taken on rising in the morning. ”

“ Very odd to have a dance when you get ill ; but
not half so odd as it is to cut off your hair to save your hair. Indians, who never cut the hair, and women also, who until recently wore their hair nearly natural, never are bald. Yet I reckon men have gone on cutting their hair for baldness, the very thing that brings it on, for thousands of years past, and, I suppose, will still go on doing so for thou sands of years to come. ”

“ In men, age is a cause of baldness, and there is no reason to think that this cause acts less powerfully in the fair sex. Absolute baldness is not common in women, but their hair gets thinner and shorter after they have passed the meridian.
The fashion of tying the hair with a ribbon or fillet will cause the hair to fall out by compressing it and therefore interfering with its nutrition. If you remove the fillet occasionally, it will do no harm to the hair. Curling the fringe with hot tongs is a very common cause of bald foreheads. ”

“ I don't know why a young man should think a heavy head of hair is such an imperative necessity, when hats are so cheap, but I was haunted by a dire fear that I might grow bald while still young. I was in continual distress lest the Butler baldness might be hereditary. ”

“ Lieving attests the same respecting the hair, and assures us that precocious baldness is to be specially observed ‘among persons of nervous temperaments and active mind, but of weak general health.’ Everyone who looks round the circle of his friends and acquaintances will remark that the hair begins to turn gray much sooner than in former days. ”

“ At any rate, baldness is a fatal bar to beauty, both in the male and the female, although to many persons (men especially) an individual of the opposite sex whose pate-hair is exceptionally abundant is repulsive. [1] Another indication of the dependence of the pate-hair on metabolism in other regions is found in the apparent connection between hair and temperament. It is difficult to conceive of a baldheaded musical genius or artist ”

“ Even baldness, when it is only baldness over the forehead (as in his case) , is rather becoming than not in a man, for it heightens the head and adds to the intelligence of the face. ”

“ Dark-haired families and races, as a rule, become bald earlier than those with light hair. At first thought it would seem as though nothing could be done to prevent premature baldness when heredity is the cause, but this is a mistake. Careful hygiene of the scalp will often counterbalance hereditary predisposition for a number of years, and even after the hair has actually begun to fall proper stimulation will, to a certain extent, and for a limited time, often restore to the hair its pristine thickness and strength. ”

“ Atrophy of the scalp, baldness, and even local paralysis, have sometimes, though rarely, been caused by them.
When the normal sulphur of the hair is absent, or deficient, the preceding substances fail to darken the hair. In this case the desired effect may often be produced by also moistening the head, say twice a week, with water, to which a little sulphuret of potassium or hydrosulphuret of ammonia has been added. ”

“ The number of specifics proposed as a cure for baldness is somewhat surprising, when one remembers that this condition is often attributed to the nervous stress and strain of modern life! Hair-dyes and stains for the nails also receive their share of attention. ”

“ Familiar with some of the popular theories as to the cause of baldness, I was surprised to find men who always wore a covering to their heads, and during business hours and always when out of doors wore a very tight hat, were never bald, and possessed a wonderfully strong, thick head of hair. ”

“ Marcellus Donatus gives fear; the Ephemerides speaks of baldness from fright; and Leo Africanus, in his description of Barbary, describes endemic baldness. Neyronis makes the following observation: A man of seventy-three, convalescent from a fever, one morning, about six months after recovery perceived that he had lost all his hair, even his eyelashes, eyebrows, nostril-hairs, etc. Although his health continued good, the hair was never renewed.
The principal anomalies of the nails observed are absence, hypertrophy, and displacement of these organs. ”

“ The scalp is the region most frequently the seat of the disease, but other hairy parts, especially the face in the male, are often invaded, and even the whole surface may be involved. Occurring upon the scalp, one or several patches may be present, which are usually rounded and circumscribed. The hair may fall out suddenly without any previous signs of weakening, the individual awaking in the morning to discover an area of partial or complete baldness on the scalp ”

“ Premature baldness is far more common than it used to be. And an early decay of teeth occurs in the rising generation with startling frequency. In general vigour the contrast appears equally striking. Men of past generations, living riotously as they did, could bear more than men of the present generation, who live soberly, can bear. Though they drank hard, kept irregular hours, were regardless of fresh air, and thought little of cleanliness, our recent ancestors were capable of prolonged application without injury, even to a ripe old age: witness the annals of the bench and the bar. ”

“ Caution.—Sulphur and mercury preparations should not be used at the same time, nor immediately succeeding each other, as they will stain the skin.
BALDNESS. (Alopecia) . Causes.—Hereditary and diseases. Congenital and senile (old age) baldness is incurable. Congenital (born without hair) baldness is rare.
MOTHERS' REMEDIES. 1. Baldness, Well Recommended for.—"A first class hair restorative is made of sage tea and whisky in equal parts with a dash of quinine in the bottle."
2. Baldness, Vaselin and Quinine for.—
"Vaselin 1 ounce
Quinine 1/2 ounce"
Mix together and apply to the scalp. ”

“ The nervous system, which is one of the most important portions of the human structure, and which controls circulation, secretion, and nutrition, often by being impaired, plays a prominent part in the production of baldness. Thus, it has been demonstrated by modern investigation that the nerves of nutrition, by their defective action, are often the cause of thinning and loss of hair. ”