Chap. I. Rtidiments. 19 



ally become developed into "thickset, long, and rather coarse 

 " dark hairs," when abnormally nourished near old-standing 

 inflamed surfaces. 39 



I am informed by Sir James Paget that often several members 

 of a family have a few hairs in their eyebrows much longer than 

 the others; so that even this slight peculiarity seems to be 

 inherited. These hairs, too, seem to have their representatives ; 

 for in the chimpanzee, and in certain species of Macacus, there 

 are scattered hairs of considerable length rising from the naked 

 skin above the eyes, and corresponding to our eyebrows ; similar 

 long hairs project from the hairy covering of the superciliary 

 ridges in some baboons. 



The fine wool-like hair, or so-called lanugo, with which the 

 human foetus during the sixth month is thickly covered, offers a 

 more curious case. It is first developed, during the fifth month, 

 on the eyebrows and face, and especially round the mouth, 

 where it is much longer than that on the head. A moustache 

 of this kind was observed by Eschricht 40 on a female foetus ; but 

 this is not so surprising a circumstance as it may at first appear, 

 for the two sexes generally resemble each other in all external 

 characters during an early period of growth. The direction and 

 arrangement of the hairs on all parts of the foetal body are the 

 same as in the adult, but are subject to much variability. The 

 whole surface, including even the forehead and ears, is thus 

 thickly clothed; but it is a significant fact that the palms of the 

 hands and the soles of the feet are quite naked, like the inferior 

 surfaces of all four extremities in most of the lower animals. As 

 this can hardly be an accidental coincidence, the woolly cover- 

 ing of the foetus probably represents the first permanent coat of 

 hair in those mammals which are born hairy. Three or four 

 cases have been recorded of persons born with their whole bodies 

 and faces thickly covered with fine long hairs ; and this strange 

 condition is strongly inherited, and is correlated with an abnor- 

 mal condition of the teeth. 41 Prof. Alex. Brandt informs me that 

 he has compared the hair from the face of a man thus charac- 

 terised, aged thirty-five, with the lanugo of a foetus, and finds it 

 quite similar in texture ; therefore, as he remarks, the case may 

 be attributed to an arrest of development in the hair, together 

 with its continued growth. Many delicate children, as I have 



35 Paget, 'Lectures on Surgical has recently sent me an additional 



Pathology,' 1853, vol. i. p. 71. case of a father and son, born in 



40 Eschricht, ibid. s. 40, 47. Russia, with these peculiarities. I 



41 See my 'Variation of Animals have received drawings of both from 

 Mid Plants under Domestication,' Paris. 



vol. ii. p. 327. Prof. Alex. Brandt 



