Jtjnb 24, 1887.] 



SCIENCE. 



605 



discovery of a new river, which flows from the 

 ITsongora Mountains, It is of considerable size, 

 and flows into the lake at the south. The river, 

 which is called ' Kakibbi ' by the Wasongora, 

 and ' Dueru ' by the Wamboga, has, near its junc- 

 tion with the lake, a large island. It is, however, 

 on account of the many cataracts, very difficult to 

 navigate ; but, on the other hand, it pours into the 

 lake throughout the whole year a large volume of 

 water. Upon its banks, at a short distance from 

 the lake, is the town of Hamgurko, where a con- 

 siderable quantity of salt of a superior quality is 

 found. The Kakibbi, or Dueru, forms the bound- 

 ary between the Muenge district of Unyoro, which 

 lies to the east, and the country of Mboga, which 

 lies to the west. The country of Mboga is inhab- 

 ited by a people who speak a language that ap- 

 pears to be only a dialect of the Kinyoro. To the 

 west-north-west and north, Mboga is bounded by 

 Lendu, a country which lies behind the mountains 

 bordering on the Albert Lake. To the west I 

 found a country inhabited by tribes I take to be 

 Iddio (A--Sandeh). To the south-west I was told 

 there was a large river, on the banks of which 

 there is a colony of Akkas, called ' Balia ' by the 

 Wanyoro people. They, however, call themselves, 

 in their own language, ' Betua.'" 



This information on the country Stanley has 

 to traverse on his way to the Mvutan Nsige is 

 of great interest. Usongora will be found as the 

 name of the island in the Muta Nsige on our map 

 of Central Africa. The great river to the south- 

 west referred to by Emin must be one of the 

 Kongo tributaries. His remarks show that the 

 Sande (Niam-Niam) tribes extend far south-east. 

 The name ' Betua,' by which the dwarfish Akka 

 call themselves, reminds us forcibly of the name 

 ' Watwa,' or ' Batua,' by which, according to 

 Wolf, all the dwarfish tribes of the southern 

 Kongo call themselves. The country of Lendu is 

 difficult to reach from the Mvutan Nsige, the hills 

 on the west side of the lake being very steep. 



Stanley's expedition arrived at Leopoldville on 

 April 20 {Mouv. geogr., June 5). It took twenty- 

 seven days to accomplish the distance between 

 Matadi and Stanley Pool, which is five days more 

 than Stanley had estimated. The scarcity of food 

 in this country was the principal cause of the 

 delay. The expedition camped nine days at Leo- 

 poldville. Here Stanley obtained for his enter- 

 prise the steamers Peace of the Baptist mission, 

 the Henry Reed of the Livingstone mission, the 

 Florida of the Sandford expedition, and the 

 Stanley of the Kongo association. On April 29 

 every thing was ready, and the expedition em- 

 barked. It is believed that Stanley Falls was 

 reached about June 5. 



HEALTH MATTERS. 



Baldness. 



Dk. G. T. Jackson read a paper recently before 

 the New York county medical society on baldness 

 and its treatment. He described four varieties of 

 baldness, or alopecia : 1*. Alopecia adnata, the 

 congenital form ; 2'='. A. senilis ; 3°, A, prema- 

 tura ; 4*. A. areata. A. senilis is that form 

 which occurs in old age, or after the age of forty- 

 five, and is often preceded or accompanied by 

 grayness of the hair. Its cause is a gradual har- 

 dening of the subcutaneous tissues of the scalp and 

 a diminution of blood-supply, followed by an 

 obliteration of the hau'-f ollicles. It is but one ex- 

 pression of that general lowering of nutrition 

 incident to advancing years. When the scalp is 

 atrophied, nothing can be done in the way of 

 treatment, but prophylaxis may do a great deal in 

 postponing those changes. A. prematura is that 

 form of baldness which occurs before the forty- 

 fifth year. Of this there are two varieties, — the 

 idiopathic and the symptomatic. The former oc- 

 curs most commonly between the ages of twenty- 

 five and thirty-five, and is not due to any ante- 

 cedent or concomitant disease. It differs from 

 the senile form in occurring at an earlier age, 

 and in being unaccompanied by other signs of di- 

 minished physical vigor, such as loss of teeth, 

 dulness of sight and hearing. The chief cause of 

 this variety is heredity. Every one has known of 

 families in which the fathers and sons have be- 

 come bald at a very early age. Another cause is 

 improper or deficient care of the scalp. It is a 

 common practice for men to souse the head daily 

 in water. Ellinger has noted this habit in eighty- 

 five per cent of his cases of baldness. Thinkers 

 and brain-workers are very often bald. Eaton 

 found, in the audiences attendant upon churches 

 and operas in Boston, that from forty to fifty per 

 cent of the men were bald ; while in cheap mu- 

 seums and at prize-fights the percentage was only 

 twelve to twenty-five. Stiff hats may cause bald- 

 ness by compressing the arteries that supply the 

 scalp. Tight and unventilated hats make the 

 scalp warm, and cause it to perspire, thus favor- 

 ing baldness. King says that baldness of the 

 vertex is due to compression by stiff hats of 

 the arteries which supply that part. The little 

 tuft of hair often observed on the top of the 

 forehead is nourished by arteries which escape 

 pressure. That women do not become bald so 

 often as men is probably because they preserve 

 the cushion of fat under the scalp longer than 

 men do. They do not wear their hats as much 

 as men ; nor are these so close-fitting, or 

 made of such impermeable material. They also 



