172 Dr Bidder^'s Bcmarks on the Origin^ 



weeks during last summer at a place in which the Flica Polo- 

 nica is among the most frequent diseases, afforded me an 

 opportunity of doing so. It is true that it was not in its 

 worst forms, but that was not necessary for an anatomical- 

 physiological investigation. Unfortunately I could not make 

 microscopical observations at the time, and afterwards I had 

 no opportunity. The portion of my remarks which relate 

 to the present subject is the following : In all the cases in- 

 vestigated by me, the matted hair-tufts did not reach to the 

 skin of the head, but the hairs which afterwards formed such 

 a tuft, to from one-half to one inch from the head, were quite 

 in their normal state. We might, to be sure, suppose that 

 sound hair had grown afterwards, and that the matting had 

 originally reached deeper, but this I had no opportunity of 

 ascertaining, as I only saw the disease in its later stages. I 

 have, indeed, never seen any cases of Plica Polonica that had 

 quite newly occurred ; but as the appearance mentioned pre- 

 sented itself in at least twenty otherwise very different indi- 

 viduals in much the same way, such may, without hesitation, 

 be regarded as the regular and original mode of occurrence. 

 As, further, the skin of the head, at the places corresponding 

 to the spots affected by Plica Polonica, was in its normal state, 

 and exhibited neither redness, swelling, nor increased sensi- 

 bility, we cannot suppose that there is an absolute dependence 

 of the phenomena of disease occurring in the hair on the con- 

 dition of the skin of the head, which contains its so-termed 

 matrix. We must rather believe that in the above-mentioned 

 cases the hair-cylinders, in consequence of a diseased action 

 beginning at a fixed place in their cellular fibres, become 

 united in larger and smaller bundles, thus individually in- 

 creasing considerably in thickness, and also become so en- 

 tangled that they divide into fine fibrils. The frequent oc- 

 currence of such fine hairs, as also that of numerous much 

 coarser hairs in Plica Polonica, can scarcely be otherwise ac- 

 counted for. A process of division or separation in the conti- 

 nuity of the hair, which sometimes occurs, is still more im- 

 portant and conclusive as to the life of the cylinder. I met 

 with two individuals in whom, a short time before, the matted 



