Headband

“ These head-bands are worn so very tightly from their earliest youth, that I have often noticed men—when the head-band was removed—show a certain flattening of the upper part of the forehead, due undoubtedly to the continuous pressure of this head-gear. In such cases, however, the cranial deformation—though always noticeable—is but slight, and, of course, unintentionally caused. The skull, as a whole, in the case of those who have worn the head-band is a little more elongated than it is in the case of those few who have not ”

“ Besides, the better class of people are not content with the process of beautifying themselves which I have just described, but surround the forehead, temples and back of the head with a head-band, a curious arrangement made of woven black horse-hair, which keeps the real hair tight under it, and not only prevents it from being blown about, but forms a more solid basis for the wonderful hats they wear. ”

“ Many of the young men and women were handsome in feature below the forehead, having fine eyes, aquiline noses and good mouths, but, in conformity with a long-standing custom, all had flat heads, which gave them a distorted and hideous appearance, particularly some of the women, who went to the extreme of fashion and flattened the head to the rear in a sharp horizontal ridge by confining it between two boards, one running back from the forehead at an angle of about forty degrees, and the other up perpendicularly from the back of the neck. ”

“ Male.—Raise the hand to the forehead as if about to grasp the rim of the hat; go through the grasping motion as the hand reaches the forehead and is placed against it instead of out where the rim of the hat would be. The grasping motion is usually repeated several times with the hand held against the forehead. III, 31.
Female.—Lift the "A" hand to the side of the jaw just behind the ear, so that the thumb touches the jaw; draw the hand down so that the end of the thumb passes along the under edge of the jaw bone until it reaches the chin. ”

“ HEADGEAR FOR HEROES.
[A contemporary, having heard of the hat specially designed for M. Clemenceau, has decided that the bowler, the topper, the Homburg, the straw, the cloth cap and all other styles at present more or less in vogue leave much to be desired, and has therefore inaugurated a search for the ideal male headdress.]
The Smillie.—A Phrygian model, executed in red Russia leather. Special features are the asbestos lining, the steam vents and the water-jacket, which combine to minimise the natural heat of the head. ”

“ The forehead cannot be called narrow in relation to the rest of the skull, nor can it be called a retreating forehead; on the contrary, the antero-posterior contour of the skull is well arched, so that the distance along that contour, from the nasal depression to the occipital protuberance, measures about 13.75 inches. The transverse arc of the skull, measured from one auditory foramen to the other, across the middle of the sagittal suture, is about 13 inches. ”

“ The head-dress of women now began to show a preference to confine the hair with nets and to close in the face, which continued till the 15th century. The circlet and long plait or plaits and the flowing hair remained till the 14th century. In the 12th century we discover the hair gathered in nets at either side of the head, covering the ears. A low-crowned hat was bound over with a band of lawn or fine material passing underneath the chin, otherwise the plaits were looped up under a circlet which was also worn with the flowing hair. ”

“ The heads of the children, when they are released from the bandage, are not more than two inches thick about the upper edge of the forehead: nor, with all its efforts, can nature ever restore their shape; the heads of grown persons being often in a straight line from the tip of the nose to the top of the forehead. ”

“ Because the beautiful shoulder slips tremulously from the heavy mouth, which lies against the smooth, polished flesh; because this shoulder rises again toward the head, slightly bent and inclined, as if to draw toward it some loved one; because the neck swells like that of a dove, and the head is stretched forward to offer a kiss, we seem to catch a glimpse of the whole body and its delicate curves. ”

“ The most approved mode of opening the head in medico-legal cases is, after dividing the integuments from ear to ear, and reflecting the scalp over the forehead and occiput, to make the usual circular incision through the skull, about an inch above the orbits in front, and over the occipital protuberance behind, using the saw lightly and carefully after the outer table of the skull has been divided, so as to avoid injuring the membranes of the brain ”

“ Head-banding done by hand is really only a twist of different coloured cotton or silk round a piece of vellum or cat-gut fastened to the back every half dozen sections. If the head-band is to be square or straight, the vellum should be made by sticking with paste two or three pieces together. ”

“ But when the head is thrown far back, a predominance is given to the posterior fibres of the muscle, which being attached behind the line of the occipito-vertebral articulation, become then capable of increasing this direction of the head. The sterno-mastoid of one side, acting singly, rotates the head and flexes it with a lateral inclination to its own side, so as to bring the side of the head nearer to the shoulder, and to turn the face in the opposite direction. ”

“ Whatever might be the case with regard to the hair, the ears, the nose, and lips, or even the teeth, it might have been thought that the actual shape of the head, as determined by the solid skull, would not have been considered a subject to be modified according to the fashion of the time and place. Such, however, is far from being the case. The custom of artificially changing the form of the head is one of the most ancient and widespread with which we are acquainted. ”

“ For Nature will be sure to whisk the hair away from your ears where you want it, and into your eyes where you don't want it, besides crowning you with magnificent disorder in the morning. But as I have always believed that no evil exists without its remedy, I had long been exercising my inventive genius in attempts to produce a head-gear which should at once protect the ears, confine the hair, and let the skull alone. ”

“ There are two for the Forehead, call'd Frontal, whose Origine is in the upper part of the Head, from whence they descend by streight Fibres, until they are fasten'd in the Skin of the Forehead near the Eye-Brows, where they are re-united: Their Action or Office is to draw the Skin of the Forehead upward, whereto they stick very close. ”

“ At the fore end, or as English zoologists prefer to say, anterior end, of the vertebral column of the rabbit, is of course the skull, containing the anterior portion of the nerve axis, the brain (Figure 1 br.) . Between the head and what is called "the body," in the more restricted sense of the word, is the neck. The neck gives freedom of movement to the head, enables the animal to look this way and that, to turn its ears about to determine the direction of a sound, and to perform endless motions in connexion with biting and so forth easily. ”

“ Sometimes the posterior primary division of the third cervical nerve reaches the scalp still nearer the middle line behind.
The third layer of the scalp or epicranium is formed by the two fleshy bellies of the occipito-frontal is muscle and the fattened tendon or aponeurosis between them. Of these two bellies the anterior (frontalis) is the larger, and, when it acts, throws the skin of the forehead into those transverse puckers which are characteristic of a puzzled frame of mind. ”

“ To explain how the head-band is worked is rather a difficult task; yet the process is a very simple one. The great difficulty is to get the silks to lie close together, which they will not do if the twist or beading is not evenly worked. This requires time and patience to accomplish. The hands must be clean or the silk will get soiled; fingers must be smooth or the silk will be frayed. ”

“ Among animals, it is true, muzzle and nasal bone also form a more or less straight line, but the specific projection of the animal's snout, which is forced to the front, as being in the nearest practical relation to objects, is essentially determined through its connection with the skull, united to which the ear is moreover placed above or below, so that in the present instance the line that is carried forward from the skull to the root of the nose or the upper jaw, where the teeth are in position, forms an acute angle instead of a right angle as is found in the case of man. ”

“ Having therefore first shaven the hairs about the forehead, we must permit the lower jaw to move, and avoiding the place where the temporal muscles are seen to act, we are to make three straight and parallel incisions on the forehead, each having the length of two fingers, and descending to the bone, and being at the distance of about three fingers’ breadth from one another. ”

“ The movements of the head—aside from those due to movements of the cervical spine—may be classified as those of flexion and extension; the bending forward and backward of the head; of rotation, in which the head remains erect; and of inclination or the depression of one or the other side. Flexion and extension of the head are of frequent necessity and physiological import; rotation is frequently necessary to move the eyes toward an object looked at, or to direct the ear toward a source of sound. ”

“ During the summer months, the head, neck, shoulders, fore part of the body, and thighs, till behind the shoulder blade, are covered with longer hair, which there ceases, and is bounded by a strictly defined line from the hinder part of the body, the hair of which is short and smooth, looking, altogether, like a shorn poodle. ”

“ On the top of the head the hair is shaved off like monks, and to the width of three fingers between their ears they also shave off the hair, letting what is between the tonsure and the back of the head grow to some length; in fact it is as long as a woman's in many cases, and plaited and tied in two tails behind the ear. They have small feet. ”

“ The top, beyond the boards, is tucked in behind the head-band. When the top and bottom of the back have been treated in this way, they are then flattened with a folder and the edges of the hinges are bent in to form the head-cap finish observable on almost any book bound by hand in leather. (Fig. E.) The tops of the head-bands may require a slight touch of [Pg 46] paste so that the leather turned over upon them will stay in place. ”

“ In one sense it was a ‘little’ hat—that is to say, it fitted a man with a moderate sized skull—but the flaps were much larger than pictures would lead one to think, and such was the weight that I am sure it would give any ordinary man accustomed to our head-gear a still neck to wear it for an hour. ”

“ Here I may also observe that children's ears are frequently disfigured by hats which are pressed down too low upon the head, or by the elastic or strings of the hat, which, being carelessly fastened under the chin, push the ears forwards and outwards. ”

“ Having, therefore, criticized our present head-gear, and condemned our hats, without pulling them to pieces, let us enquire what a proper covering for the head should be: first of all in point of usefulness, and next in point of comely appearance. But let no man vainly imagine that we expect to suit the fancies of all the creatures privileged to wear hats, or even to cover their heads; we do not pretend to invent, or decide upon, any one given type or form of head-dress. ”

“ In the cervical region, distortion usually results either from forcible extension of the neck—for example from a violent blow or fall on the forehead forcing the head backwards—or from forcible flexion of the neck. ”

“ Under the chin, long hair, about the same colour as on the crown of the head, which should be a bright, golden tan, and not on any account intermingled with dark or sooty hairs. Hairs on the sides of the head should be very long, of a few shades deeper tan than that on the top of the head, especially about the ear-roots. EYES—Medium in size, dark in colour, having a sharp, intelligent expression, and placed so as to look directly forward. ”

“ The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorily with a transverse ridge of the same, but less prominent, running round from the back of one ear to the other. ”

“ When in full dress he wears a helmet several sizes too large for him, but, in general, prudently discards this article of headgear as having a tendency to render him conspicuous in a country where helmets are obsolete, and wraps his head in a handkerchief that he ties over his ears. ”

“ Get the skin on face and around mouth placed, then draw the neck skin tight and nail to the edge of the board with finishing brads an inch or more long. Any surplus remaining can be trimmed away. A square of rough board, screwed on the end of the neck, will enable it to stand on the bench with nose up while the final touches are put on the anatomy of the head and face. ”

“ The ear-pieces which are sometimes put on boy's hats either slip out of place and are useless, or have to be fastened with elastic or silk strings so tightly under the chin that the pressure is injurious. ”

“ Among ladies the butterfly head-dress and the steeple cap passed out of fashion, and a grave headgear comes in which has been compared with a dog-kennel, a hood-cap thrown over head and shoulders, the front being edged with a broad band which was often enriched with needlework, the ends falling in lappets to the breast. ”