CAN MAKE HAIR GROW ON BALD MICE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18057, 18 January 1927, Page 12

CAN MAKE HAIR GROW ON BALD MICE.

(Special to the "Star.") EDINBURGH, Deccmber ‘2.

The rumour that Dr Francis A. E. Crew. of Edinburgh University, had discovered a cure {or baldness was contradicted by Dr Crew himself when interviewed at his laboratory at the animal breeding research department of the University. Dr Crew had no cure for baldness so far as man was roncerned. he explained; his researches and his discoveries had been confined to mice. The hope lay in the possibility that his theory, when experimentation is made. might be found applicable to man in the degree of correctness that Dr Crew has found it applicable to Il'llCC. , Dr Crew has been experimenting for the past two years with his mice. He has a wide range of kinds, from the common fur-clad variety known to us all to puny hairless specimens with a skin of palepink hue. lie concentrated upon the mouse because of its fecundity and because it has the full characteristics of the problem he wished to solve. He gets a. fresh generation every eleven weeks, and as his theory is; based on the assumption that baldness is hereditary the circumstances of rapid reproduction is most helpful. The establishment of the hereditary principle was only half of Dr Crew's battle, but it is a. most important one. It; localised the search for the ideal cure. In the case of the hairless mice Dr Crew explained to me that at the age of three weeks these mice cast their coats, which did not grow again. Their progeny similarly were born with fur. but went bald at the same early stage of life. Dr Crew has now traced the hereditary shortcomings to what: he describes as an inefficiency in the functioning of the thyroid gland. “I have proved by my experiments that this is the case," he declared. “and I have replaced the hair by giving thyroid. My task, of course. has been made scientifically simple by the quick breeding of mice and by my being able to arrange for a regular routine for the normal span of lifewefeeding, heating. light, etc." “At \tlm moment." Continued Dr Crew. "it is impossible to put men in the place of mice. At the same time it is more than a conjecture that the thinning of hair that comes to man with advancing years is due to the same characteristic of insufficicnvy of thyroid. The baldness of a yon—_zg man of 30 ,howevt‘r, is another matter. One does not know the rause of that, but one does know that it is hereditary. I can go no farther than \that. I have not; experimented With man; my I’9searehes have been limited to the ammail kingdom. lf man could be kept under the same controller) conditions as

my mic-c during an adequate period of investigation Ithavc no doubt that sviencc would solve the problem of hair in man. But the procczfis imust be

a slow one and, as I have tried to indicate. scicnce'is a long way off yet frbm any generalisations that can be helpful tn the hairless.’ ’ Dr lircw, who is only 38 years of age, has been director of the Animal Breed in}; Research Department and Lecturer in Genetics in the University of Edinburgh sinrc 1921‘