OK, A TREATISE OX TILE. 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 18 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 gfey in a few days. Tlie 

 rest of his hair remained brown. 



Sometimes a sing'e white look is found in the head without any assignable cause; the 

 specimen of pile from the head of Mi's. - -, 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 fictitious 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 1 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 voice 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 placed 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, now changed to a perfect white." 



It would seem that the frightful disease, leprosy, suddenly turns hair white. (See 

 Levit, ch. xiii.) And the same has been said of the disease called scald-head, (Tinea 

 capitis.) (See Diet, 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, 1848, 



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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