a papilla be destroyed it is reproduced. He says that, in the case of the destruction of a papilla of a hair, a new papilla and a new hair are generated in the old follicle. The process, according to him, is the following. When the papilla atrophies, its hair-bulb and the lower part of the follicle degenerate and are gradually absorbed, and then, when nothing is left of the apparatus but the upper part of the follicle and the hair-root, a growth of cells pushes downward from the outer root-sheath and becomes invaginated over a new papilla. But where does the new papilla come from? A new papilla is thus assumed to have formed. But we have one cogent and sufficient reason to oppose to the idea that a new papilla can form in case the old one has actually been destroyed, and that is that, when by the needle we extirpate a hair by passing an electric current through the papilla, no hair is ever reproduced from the follicle. It is a legitimate presumption that no papilla is there to reproduce it.

When a hair, exhausted as to the vitality of its root, perhaps from the root being called upon to maintain a stem too long for its capacity to nourish, the root shrivels, and the root, with the hair, slips from its follicle, leaving the papilla to reproduce another hair, as it assuredly will do, unless the case be one of incipient baldness. The follicle remains as the vital point, fully equal to producing another hair. When we pull from the head a live, vigorous hair, we do not find the root shriveled, but looking like a dense gelatinous mass, ragged at the extremity and sides. This is the root with a portion of the inner rootsheath clinging to it. The reader will remember that we said that the inner root-sheath extends only from the neck of the follicle nearly, but not quite, to its bottom, and closely invests the root. Hence, when the root is exuberant with vitality and bulges out in every direction in its follicle, instead of being overtaxed to support too long a shaft, or dwindled from disease, it is in such close contact with the inner root-sheath, that in

pulling out a vigorous hair we must needs pull out part of the inner root-sheath with it. In neither case, however, is the papilla removed or destroyed, and it at once begins to generate a new hair.

A new hair is pointed, and in making its way out of the narrow neck of the follicle it is bent around like a loop upon itself, in which form its ability to escape is much increased. Nevertheless, hairs do sometimes become involved in the follicle so that they cannot escape, and continue to grow in a spiral form until the irritation to the skin becomes so intense that they must be liberated by its perforation.

Baldness, whether premature or mature, as in old age, and also baldness from disease, is caused by the absorption of the structures which represent the mechanism of the growth of the hair. Baldness may be physiological or pathological; from natural weakness of the structures and cessation of their functions, or from disease constitutional or acquired.

Congenital baldness can be but retarded in its devastation, and, probably, best by means of the stimulation of the galvanic current. For this particular application of the current, there is now manufactured an admirably constructed brush, with light, springy steel wires, taking the place of bristles. So far from being harsh to the scalp, the sensation produced by it without the current is delightful. With the addition of the light current used for the scalp, the sensation undergoes, of course, the change natural to the electrical flow.

Congenital baldness being, as every one knows, frequently associated with great general vitality, tonic and constitutional treatment is not indicated for persons suffering from its inroads. When, however, the tendency to loss of hair originates otherwise, whether in children or adults, constitutional treatment should be adopted coincidently with local treatment of the scalp.

Dandruff is a perfectly normal product. It represents scales of the horny layer of the scarf-skin, both those pushed out of the follicles by the growing hair, and those fallen from the surface of the scalp of the head. The scales of the horny layer of the scarf-skin are constantly falling from all parts of the body, but the fact does not attract general observation, as it does on the scalp, because their fall is not arrested as it is by the presence of long hairs like those of the scalp. In healthy persons, especially in the cases of those whose hair grows fast, the formation of dandruff is naturally the most rapid. Beyond the natural, healthy condition described, we reach the oily scaliness of seborrhoea and other diseases. Fuller mention of affections of the skin causing baldness properly belongs to a chapter in which we shall discuss the diseases and parasitic invasions of the hair; so we reserve it for that place.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE COSMETIC CARE AND TREATMENT OF THE HAIR.

HE hair, at the first glance, seems to be virtually inde.

THE

pendent of the body, to be a growth which manifests vigor or weakness, irrespective of vigor or weakness of bodily constitution. We sometimes see young, lusty members of society bald at an early age, and the consumptive often endowed with marvelous luxuriance of hair. Yet this independence is, after all, but seeming. We know next to nothing of the delicate processes of vital chemistry, but, little as we know, we know this, that the growth of hair depends primarily upon nerve-supply and circulation in the scalp, and therefore that a man endowed with superb general health may become bald, while, at least for a time, the hair of the consumptive may flourish. The health of the hair of the consumptive, as deduced from its appearance of luxuriance, is only seeming. Consumption is a consuming of tissues and coincident death of structures. In its earliest stages it often presents many signs similar to those of health,high hope, appetite, color, muscularity, because the vital action is spendthrift. The outgo is more than the income; it is not drawing upon the interest of constitution, for there is none, but upon the little principal that it possesses. But later, the hair shares in the general decadence. It begins to fall out, what is left to become dry and shriveled, and in the last stages of the disease, if they last long enough, the sparse remainder gives no idea of its pristine luxuriance and beauty. The nerves of the scalp and all the apparatus depending on them are atrophying and, like the body, will soon be dead.

The first, last, single, fundamental fact that we would strive to impress upon the reader, regarding the growth of the hair, is (305)

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