TALES OF BLANCHED HAIR

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 31, 19 January 1912, Page 8

TALES OF BLANCHED HAIR

A GERMAN’S SCEPTICISM

It lias been believed that tlio ease of the fab]cd personage of Chdlm, wim,so “hair turned white in a single night,” had similar happenings in real life to lend it credibility. Most of ns have heard that Marie Antoinette’s hair turned white during the night before her execution, and that the deeds and terrors of St. Bartholomew's night blanched the hair of Henry lA r . Few have had the hardihood to doubt that the phenomena actually occurred, but it seems that the time has now come for ail to abandon their belief. Sticda, a hardheaded German scientist, declares boldly that there have been no such eases. Ho states as one having authority, that such a thing could not possibly happen, and then, not •satisfied, adds that it never lias happened. With a line disregard of foliclore, history, and medical literature, lie points the finger of doubt, and challenges many long-deceased historians and physicians to arise and prove their stories. He claims that when the hair turns white under ordinary conditions it docs so in one of two ways: either the pigmented hairs fall out and are replaced by mipigmented hairs, or, loss commonly, pigment production stops in a growing hair, and the colourless portion gradually replaces the darker outer segment. As the growing of a new crop of hair in a night is a physical impossibility, Sticda discredits all the tales. He analyses the best authenticated stories of such supposed blanchings of hair, and finds them all lacking in support sufficient to moot critical consideration, much less than sufficient to establish an acceptable scientific demonstration. For example, he doubts the story of Mario Antoinette’s sudden loss of hair pigmentation, stating that although the Queen certainly was grey at the time of her execution, yet this was no novelty, for she was almost grey nine months before, at the time the King met his sudden end at the hands of the revolutionists. Many other stories of the same sort he proves to Ho nothing better than old wives’ tales, founded on credulity rather than careful investigation. In several instances the explanation offered is simplicity itself: the dungeon’s door sH:i the prisoner off from further supplies of hair dyes. Truly, the iconoclast respects nothing—not even the grey hairs of sorrow.