BALM FOR THE BALD.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 338, 30 May 1885, Page 3

BALM FOR THE BALD.

Let the, "ibaldheads" of Auckland and ■everywhere else be of good cheer and rejoice in the knowledge, that a distinguished German ■sava7it has declared that" baldness is a mark of intellectual .superiority.". Many married men may have excellent private reasons for pooh-poohing this assertion of the Professor's, ■and yet hiß theory is an ingenious one. He instances the sheep as the. most un-intellectual of creatures, and; attempts to account for the •mental backwardness of the animal by -asserting, that the strain, which the growth of his coat imposes, on his organism absorbs its •entire stock: of energy and leaves none to -■support the mental functions. And so with "the bear. " The more sagacious the animal," ■says the Professor, " the less hair will it possess," and he instances the elephant and ■the serpent in support of his conclusions, adding that it follows that baldness is a mark *of intellectual superiority; ; a result of the intellectual fermentation of the brain which .gradually bulges out the upper . surface of. the skull. Baldness is therefore not ■simply loss of hair, as is vulgarly supposed ; it is caused by the excess of cerebral energy, whiph forces the skull through, and . forces it to grow, above the hair. Short-haired .women and long-haired anen have long been proverbial, the ono for .strong-mindedness, and the other for feebleness of intellect." This is a " nasty jar " for iihe disciples of Oscar Wylde. On the whole, the Professor's theory as to the cause of baldjaese is certainly a more acceptable one than that advanced by less scientific persons, who will tell you that late hours, too many whiskies, fatmily jars, and half a score other causes mors •or less widely removed from " intellectual superiority," will account for the premature absence of wool on the place where the wool ought to grow.