OR, A TREATISE ON PILE. 87 
We have, likewise, in our collection, a lock of white hair, taken from the head of Wm. 
H. McCombe, of Lancaster county, Pa., now 13 years of age, who, three years ago, was 
kicked in the mouth by a horse, in consequence of which some hair on the left side of his 
head, above the temple, and of the size of half a dollar, turned grey ina few days. ‘The 
rest of his hair remained brown. 
Sometimes a sing'e white lock is found in the head without any assignable cause; the 
specimen of pile from the head of Mrs. =, of Montgomery county, Pa., belongs to 
this category. 
To these we might add the case of Her Majesty Maria Antoinette, whose beautiful 
blonde locks, history informs us, lost their color in one night. 
The effects of Fear.—The following is quoted from the Boston Medical and Surgical 
Journal, a periodical in which we should not look for a fi¢titious narrative, yet the story is 
wonderful :— . 
“A young man (23 years old) came from the mines to San Francisco, with the intention 
of soon leaving the latter place for home. On the evening of his arrival, he, with his 
companions, visited the gambling saloons. After watching for a time the varied fortunes 
of a table, supposed to be undergoing the process of ‘tapping,’ from the continued success 
of those betting against the bank, the excitement overthrew his better judgment, and he 
threw upon the ‘seven spot’ of a new deal, a bag which he said contained $1,100, his all— 
the result of two years’ privation and hard labor—exclaiming, with a yoice trembling from 
intense excitement, ‘My Home, or the Mines!’ 
“As the dealer slowly resumed the drawing of his cards, with his countenance livid 
from fear of the inevitable fate that seems ever attendant upon the tapping process when 
commenced, I turned my eyes upon the young man who had staked his whole gains upon 
a card; and never shall forget the impression made by his look of intense anxiety, as he 
watched the cards as they fell from the dealer’s hands All the energies of his system 
seemed concentrated in the fixed gaze of his eyes, while the deadly pallor of his face 
bespoke the subdued action of his heart. All around seemed infected with the sympa- 
thetic powers of the spell—even the hitherto successful winners forgot their own stakes in 
the hazardous chance plaeed upon the issue of the bet. The cards are slowly told with 
the precision of high-wrought excitement. The seven spot wins. The spell is broken— 
reaction takes place. The winner exclaims, with a deep-drawn sigh, ‘I will never gamble 
again,’ and was carried from the room in a deep swoon, from which he did not fully 
recover until the next morning, and then to know that the equivalent surrendered for his 
gain was the color of his hair, new changed to a perfect white.” 
It would seem that the frightful disease, leprasy, suddenly turns hair white. (See 
Levit., ch. xiii.) And the same has been said of the disease called scald-head, (‘Tinea 
capitis.) (See Dict. des Sci. Med., v. 43, p. 502.) 
An Experiment.—Being desirous of ascertaining whether a sudden and violent death 
would effect this or any other change in hair, we, on the 12th day of October, 154%, 
procured a lock of the hair of the head of Charles Langfeldt, the murderer; and on the 
20th of the same month, immediately after his execution, by hanging. we procured another ; 
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