December 28, 1888.] 



SCIENCE. 



335 



of the body to sun and air has much to do with hair-production, as 

 Mr. Eaton claims, and as to tlie truth of which any one may satisfy 

 himself by leaving the arms or other portions of the body uncov- 

 ered at the seaside or in the country. 



Taking up the case against the stiff hat, Mr. Gouinlock explains 

 how readily the arteries can be compressed, especially when the 

 hair is cropped close. He thinks the fact that below the line of 

 pressure the hair remains, while it disappears above it, is quite clear 

 upon his theory; and, to account for the presence of hair over the 

 temporal region when absent on the crown, he insists that here the 

 temporal muscle acts as a cushion, preventing pressure. But this 

 writer seems to forget that there are superficial and middle tem- 

 poral arterial branches as well as deep ones, and that it is just these 

 superficial ones (liable to pressure) that have most to do with sup- 

 plying blood to the hair-bulbs. He also takes no account of other 

 methods, besides pressure, by which blood can be cut off from a 

 certain region. The familiar phenomena of blushing arrd pallor 

 show that the nervous system has a controlling influence over the 

 size of small arteries ; and the fact that the hair may become gray 

 in a few hours, under violent emotion, carries with it the lesson 

 that in some way the nutrition of the hair is regulated by this same 

 nervous system. 



Dr. Mills says, that, to understand the physiological bearings of 

 this subject, the somewhat complex relations of the blood-vessels 

 of the brain, the face, the bones and muscles of the head, and of 

 the scalp, must be borne in mind. The arteries of the brain find 

 an outlet for their blood, when it has passed through the capillaries 

 and done its work, in those peculiar venous channels lying on the 

 inner tables of the skull known as ' sinuses.' These communicate 

 with the veins of the softer osseous tissue (diploe) lying between 

 the main tables of the cranial bones, which again have connections 

 with the veins on the outside of the head. Now, it is plain, from 

 this series of connections, that pressure on the scalp must influence 

 the whole vascular system of the head back to the arteries of the 

 brain, unless in some way counteracted. Pressure generally affects 

 veins, from their superficial position, much more than arteries. The 

 bad effects of venous dilation are seen in the slow-healing ulcers on 

 the limbs of those with dilated (varicose) veins. Throughout his 

 paper Mr. Gouinlock has directed his attention almost wholly to arte- 

 ries rather than to veins. He has nowhere mentioned, what is com- 

 monly enough seen by the physician, that anastomotic arterial con- 

 nections are especially opened up under the exigencies of disease, as 

 from the pressure of tumors, etc. 



Would Nature refuse to combat the hard hat ? Could she not 

 adapt to it in a greater degree than Mr. Gouinlock's theory sup- 

 poses ? In looking at a plate portraying the course of the arteries 

 of the head, it will be noticed that the terminal branches mount to 

 the vertex of the skull, and anastomose with their fellows of the 

 opposite side by very s)nall offshoots. As it is the smaller branches 

 of arteries that are the most susceptible to changes in calibre, — can, 

 in fact, be most readily influenced by the nervous mechanism, — it 

 is easy to understand why that part of the scalp, with its hair-bulbs, 

 supplied by them, should, either from pressure or from lessening of 

 calibre in response to nervous influence, be the area most to suffer: 

 hence the explanation of the fact that baldness of the vertex is the 

 most marked. The great increase in the prevalence of all forms of 

 nervous disease, and the modifications wrought in old forms of dis- 

 ease by the greater prominence of the nervous type of human 

 being, point to the fact that our civilization makes calls upon the 

 organization which tell especially on the nervous system. The 

 strain of life falls in general, it will be conceded, most upon men. 

 Man is the bread-winner : his anxieties, struggles, and disappoint- 

 ments are both many and severe ; and man is often prematurely bald 

 for the same reason that he is prematurely old in other respects. 

 Woman is less so, because brain stress less frequently falls to her 

 lot. But in connection with this must he taken, to complete the ex- 

 planation, the fact, that, as with some races and some males of our 

 own race, the vitality and persistence of the hair of the head in 

 woman is specially marked. That overwork of the brain may in- 

 fluence the cephalic circulation (and so the hair) unfavorably, is 

 evident enough from the dark circles beneath the eyes, owing to 

 venous congestion, on the morning after unduly severe mental ex- 

 ercise, not to mention the headache from a similar cause ; and it is 



not surprising that the vertex of the head, with its relatively vari- 

 able and feeble blood-supply, should suffer most, — in a word, that 

 the overworked or ovcrworried man should be bald, — unless, as in 

 most women, there is unusual vitality of his hair-bulbs. Baldness 

 is one more of the many warnings of our day, — one of Nature's 

 protests against the irregular and excessive activity maintained ia 

 this restless age. 



Plastering Wines. — The Society of Pharmacy of Bordeaux 

 some time ago appointed a committee to examine into the subject 

 oiplAlrage. This is a process in which plaster-of- Paris is added 

 to wine both to clarify and preserve it. The effect of wine thus 

 treated upon its consumers has long been a matter of doubt, some 

 authorities regarding it as harmless, while others believed that such 

 wine was injurious to health. The conclusions of this committee 

 are as follows : i. In the present state of viticulture in the south 

 of France and in Algeria, the plastering of wines in the mash is al- 

 most always necessary, in order to give the wines the marketable 

 qualities sought after by consumers ; 2. Facts are wanting to show 

 that plastered wines are injurious to health ; 3. The experience of 

 numerous populations that drink only plastered wine, the experience 

 of the many strangers who are continually travelling through the south 

 of France and Algeria, drinking hardly any thing else than plas- 

 tered wine, and methodical experiments by learned bodies, show 

 that potassium sulphate in the proportion of sixty grains to the litre 

 of wine produces no appreciable effect on the various functions of 

 the economy ; 4. The plastering of wines in the mash to the ex- 

 tent of producing this proportion of potassium sulphate may be 

 authorized until facts rigorously deduced from extensive scientific 

 experiments show the dangers or inconveniences of this amount 

 as regards the public health. The Academy of Medicine, through 

 a committee, has been investigating the same subject, and its con- 

 clusions are as follows: i. The testimony and the facts analyzed in 

 the present report demonstrate that excessive plastering exerts an 

 injurious influence on the public health ; 2. From the exclusive 

 point of view of hygiene, the commission cannot approve of the 

 principle of the plastering of wines ; 3. Nevertheless in view of the 

 producers' and dealers' necessities, and especially taking the con- 

 sumers' interest into account, it thinks that it would be imprudent 

 to exclude from the market during certain years, by too absolute a 

 measure, wines which thus far nothing but moderate plastering has 

 proved capable of preserving ; 4. Considering that, if potassium 

 sulphate is a natural constituent of pure wines, it never exists in 

 them in a proportion above sixty centigrams to the litre, as analysis 

 shows ; that it has not been directly proved that potassium sulphate, 

 even in the proportion of two grams to the litre of wine, has any nox- 

 ious influence on health, but that it isnecessan,- to fix the maximum 

 of potassium sulphate which may, without appreciable danger, be 

 produced in wine by plastering, — the commission is of the opinion 

 that the presence of potassium sulphate in the wines of commerce, 

 whatever may be its origin, ought not to be tolerated beyond the 

 maximum limit of two grams to the litre. The commission urges 

 that the regulation formerly in force should be carried out strictly. 



Organic Poisons.— At the fifth annual meeting of the New 

 York State Medical Association, held at Albany in October, the 

 subject of ptomaines, leucomaines, and extractives, was discussed 

 by several of the members. In speaking of the composition of 

 ptomaines, Prof. Elwyn Waller of New York said that the presence 

 of nitrogen, sulphur, and phosphorus had been determined. They 

 were volatile unstable bodies, some of which could be represented 

 chemically as ammonia in which more or less hydrogen was re- 

 placed by the radical CH,, forming dimethylamine, Irimethyldia- 

 mine, etc. Their action in the case of the poisonous members of 

 the series when taken into the living body resembled that of the 

 pyridic bases. Some produced a rapid dilatation of the pupil and 

 weakening of the nervous centres, others loss of muscular contrac- 

 tility, others loss of cutaneous sensibility, others a slow action of 

 the heart, others convulsions, others somnolence and torpor, and 

 others pallor with profuse flow of the secretions. He thought that 

 the ptomaines of cholera and typhoid had been found beyond much 

 doubt. All ptomaines, leucomaines. and extractives were converted 

 albumens. Leucomaines were midway between ptomaines and ex- 

 tractives, without definite boundaries between them. Thev were 



