ALL A PATTERN

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 3

ALL A PATTERN

WHY WE GO BALD

Men who grow bald and have grey hair now can blame it partly on a mysterious ,'fpattern" of Kature that seems to govern both' men and apesy. says the "San Francisco Chronicle."

Gcrrit S. Miller, jun., of the Smithsonian Institution, reported, that types of baldness and grey hair common among men also are found often in apes and represent a 'family-trait" or "pattern" of the whole great primate family to which he holds both men. and apes belong.

Comparing men and monkeys he also has found evidence tending to show the hair of the white race may eventually become permanently'white, and has discovered new clues to why bodies of humans arc almost hairless and why hair on the face is a characteristic of males only. .-'■ - /.

Baldness "patterns" found in both men and apes include receding of hair at the forehead and ou the sides of the forehead over the ears, a bald spot on the top bf tho crown, and baldness of tho entire crown of the head with a fringe of hair remaining around the sides. ' •"■■'.. ;

Lack of hair on. the human body sometimes is ascribed to long generati^is of wearing clothes,' but. Miller said that "it.; is ; - possible to recognise tho fact that human bareness is only an exaggeration of a tendency that is found in other primates. The general distribution of longer and shorter hair on the body of the 'gorillas rather closely coincides with the human scheme."