332 Dr Dal ton jun. on the Proteus anguinus. 



those rapid, almost sudden processes, by which, in the course 

 of a few hours, the colour of the hair is destroyed. Such 

 phenomena become more wonderful when we remember that 

 even the strongest acid scarcely, if at all, affects the pigment 

 of the hair ; that the caustic alkalies dissolve, but do not 

 destroy it, and that none of the organic acids (so far as I am 

 aware), not even the formic, causes it to disappear. A 

 stronger evidence in favour of its independent vitality can 

 scarcely be found ; nor do I understand how such facts can be 

 accounted for on any other hypothesis than that of a per- 

 meation of fluids among the fibres of the shaft. Vauquelin 

 attributed its disappearance to an acrid secretion from the 

 follicle ; Henle to a molecular change in the elements of the 

 hair itself. Grief, fear, and other emotions, are well known 

 to alter the character of the secretions, and such mental 

 conditions are also known to have been the proximate causes 

 of these sudden changes in the hair. The hair of a lady, in 

 my own family connection, from some distressing circum- 

 stances which deeply affected her, became gray in a single 

 night. A medical man in London, less than twenty years 

 ago, under the fear of bankruptcy, had his dark hair so 

 changed in the same period, that his friends failed to recog- 

 nise him ; but the colour in this instance returned as his 

 worldly prospects revived. M. Roulin states that a friend 

 of his, terrified by the prospect of losing his fortune, had the 

 hair on the side on which he reposed turned to gray in a 

 single night. — (From an Inaugural Dissertation on the Ge- 

 neral Integuments of Animals and their Appendages, 1853. 

 This Dissertation gained the gold medal in the University of 

 Edinburgh.) 



Some account of the Proteus anguinus. By J. C. Dalton 

 Junior, M.D. 



In the Austrian province of Carniola there are a large num- 

 ber of grottoes, the two most remarkable of which are in the 

 immediate vicinity of Adelsberg, a small post-town about 

 thirty-five miles inland from Trieste. The larger of these, 



