BALDNESS AND BREATHING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7391, 1 May 1902, Page 2

BALDNESS AND BREATHING.

A REMARKABLE THEORY. A remarkable theory has recently, 'been put forward by an American physician (says the " British Medical Journal"). His notion is that expired air contains organic matter which, if retained im the lungs and absorbed, Wights the' growth of the hair. He knows so' much' of this poison as lo be able to give it a name, " trichotoxicon." He has made experiments with it on animals, ■and demonstrated its toxicity to his own satisfaction. ' The fact that men are much moio liable to baldness than women finds a ready, if not altogether convincing, explanation in the "iact" that men being abdominal breathers, they do not empty their apical .air-cells ; while, on the other hand, it is triumphantly 'pointed out that women, whose respiration, is costal, develop little trichotoxicon, and hence have luxuriant hair. . Consumptive patients, m whose consolidated cells the poisoned air cannot stagnate, are said to be markedly free from baldness; whilst in adults of 'both sexes, as fixation of the libs comes on with advancing age, the tendency to baldness increases in direct proportion. If tins theory is accepted, it is clear that/the best means of preventing baltaess would be the adaption^ of a good style of 'breathing. *<w that this act, whi-oh used to be thought natural, h«s developed into a fine art an appropriate system of "exercises -coulc doubtless easily !be devised. It would be a,n interesting upectoble to see a number &• gentlemen whose heads are beginning tt show the depredations of tricJhotoxicorminting und blowing in the effort to expel from their lungs the " subtle thief" o.