124 TlUf'IIOLOOTA MAMMALH'M: 



these facts, and others of a like nature, we may conclude that hair was intended to protect 

 us from violence and the inclemencies of seasons. By its division into filaments, which, 

 (especially in regard to those of the head,) spread and flow, catching every breeze, it 

 exposes the largest possible extent of surface to the actions of light, of the atmosphere and 

 of electricity, which, doubtless, act upon its fluids, promoting their motions. 



OF BALDNESS. Savages, who never wear hats or caps, retain their hair ;* but civilized 

 man covers his head and becomes bald. It is painful to see the glowing and graceful locks 

 of children suffering false imprisonment in paper curls, put into the stocks of unnatural 

 plaits, or smothered under imperious head-gear, to the manifest injury of its growth and 

 destruction of its beauty. 



Every one must have remarked that females do not become bald as often as males, 

 which may be accounted for by their wearing less dense coverings on their heads than 

 our felted hats. 



These considerations teach us what are the general causes of baldness; nevertheless, 

 there are others which may conspire to the same effect. It has already been shown that 

 the hair of the head of the oval-haired man, has an inclination of obliquity with the epi- 

 dermis through which it pierces; and any forcible change of this direction will have a ten- 

 dency to loosen the hair in its sheath, or in its sheath and in the follicle, and will cause it 

 prematurely to fall out. The disagreeable feeling which we experience when our hair 

 is combed "the wrong way" as it is generally termed, that is, contrary to its natural incli- 

 nation, is not at all owing to any feeling in the shaft, but to this disturbance of the sheath, 

 or sheath and follicle, which is experienced by the nerves, and this disagreeable feeling is 

 a warning that we are warring against a law of nature. The effect of this practice is 

 most injurious when the operation of altering the inclination is done with a stiff brush ; 

 each bristle, at its extremity, is placed against the lower end of the shaft of the hair, and 

 when the brush is turned outward and upwards, acts as a lever, prying out the filament, 

 which had been previously loosened. Dr. Gross says, that baldness generally commences 

 at the crown of the head,f and this is the place which is generally most brushed. 



Another fruitful source of baldness is the too free use, in anointing the head, of aqueous 

 or alcoholic essences, which remove the natural grease designed to preserve the hair. To 

 which we might add that some persons, when colorless hairs make their first appearance 

 in their heads, pluck them out. 



Julia, the daughter of Augustus, celebrated fur the unbridled license of her manners, 

 was early visited with grey hairs, which she pulled out in secret. One day she was sur- 

 prised by the sudden appearance of the Emperor, who saw several of the drawn hairs 

 upon her robe. Augustus, dissimulating at first, led the conversation to age, and inquired 

 of his daughter which she would prefer, baldness, or grey hair. " The latter,'' she promptly 

 answered. "Why, then," asked the Emperor, "do you allow your women to make 

 yon bald r 



* The old savages of Vanikoro Island (Australia) become bald ! (Latham, Nat. Hist. ofVar., &-c., 223.) 

 f Elem. of Path, and Anat,, 328. 



