HOW HAIR REVEALS CHARACTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12016, 12 July 1902, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOW HAIR REVEALS CHARACTER.

It is well. known that certain coloured and certain textured Lair accompanies'and indicates certain temperaments and dispositions. This statement applies to individuals as well as to races." So writes Dr. , Robert Jones, F.11.C.5., " England, resident physician to and superintendent iof the London County : Insane Asylum, in the London Lancet. '■■■■■. •Dr. Jones has noted the colour of'the hair of 2393.-insane people, 1400 "females and 993 males, and . has found that 'the largest proportion of them have brown hair. He found no insane Albinos, and comparatively fewvictims of mental derangement among the fair-haired and the black-haired, types. Red->j headed persons, according to his investigation, are practically exempt from insanity. Dr. Jones also found a large number of grey-haired and bald people (in the asylum In a word, if a man goes mad-he is the more apt to become grey-headed or bald. . ' " The influence of nervous changes on the hair has not been fully worked out," says this scientist, and he proceeds to discuss sudden blanching of ; the hair, ; cases where, the-hair turns "grey in a single night." He-acknowledges that such cases occur, bub he . has never seen one. However, the hair and beard of one of his patients changed from a flecking of grey to absolutely pure white in five . weeks. Dr. Jones, returning to the asylum after an absence, did not recognise the man. , The doctor offers this ingenious and interesting explanation of : the cause of sudden blanching of hair:— "It is noteworthy that although white hair is compatibly with vigorous and perfect health, as is witnessed in the winter-whiten-ing of the fur of animals inhabiting polar regions, this is not the case s with albinism; which is generally accompanied by a marked deficiency of vital deafness often oc-< curring in cats, defects of eyesight in horses/ and both combined in human beings. " In the winter-whitening of Arctic birds and foxes this change is an adaptability to environment,, enabling them either to avoid! their enemies or to deceive their prey, and it is stated to occur instantaneously and to be determined by some .sudden* natural phenomenon, such as a. fall of snow, - which has an immediate correlative effect upon the nervous system of the animal, indicating the necessity of an equally sudden adaptation to its changed surroundings. "May not cases of ; sudden blanching ' ' through intense emotion be , analogous to the change which is known to occur naturally in the lower animals, and thus be one o' those reversions which we still meet with in the physical and mental deterioration ol human beings, also indicating that a sudden influence through the nervous system is brought to bear upon the organism, neces- ' sitating sudden transformation if this organism is to continue its existence under its new environment''" • That nervous changes have remarkable' influence on the hair is undoubted/ and them have been many well-authenticated cases oil people'who, from one • cause, or another, usually prodigious fright, have turned grey in a single night-. • Sometimes fright has are effect even more surprising on the ' hair. • Thus. Paul Cowles, the ten-year-old son of \ P. W. Cowles, a merchant of Bolivar. N.Y., was "scared bald-headed"-— bald-headed is used here literally arid not slangily. : Paul ' ; was terribly frightened by an "apparition, and he did not recover from the nervous slock for weeks. . After two months the boy's hair began to fall out, and soon his he<\d was as bare of hair as the soles'of his feet; v . ■ • So> remarkable was this case, which occurred only last June, that scientists in Paris discussed it. Some did not believe it others, cited similar instances. Dr. Pazzi. imported an even more extraordinary ~ instance vf fright causing complete baldness, this, time 'in a woman:— fashionable woman and her husband were the only occupants of a Jonely country villa. ?The husband was suddenly seized with violent hydrophobia. .and attacked her. Long she fought him off until her terrified shrieks brought help. When rescue came 1 she fell paralysed, and in the next few days every •hair on her heavl fell out. She recovered from her paralysis, but. remained as bald as : ivory. ; ___________- ~'V.