But hope and sunshine gather about the grey hairs ripe for immortality:
“Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight
Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary.”
We have hitherto regarded the hair as a thing of beauty and the crowning ornament of man’s structure. We have now to consider the diseases to which it is subject; and first we will speak of Baldness. Where partial baldness arises from debility of the system, the growth of hair usually follows on restoration to health, and accidental baldness may generally be removed by the ordinary applications. But the baldness of a more permanent character, which results from the obliteration of the hair-follicles, seldom admits of a perfect remedy. In such cases the skin is smooth and glossy, as is duly noted by Chaucer, in his portrait of the monk:
“His head was bald, and shone as any glass.”
This is the alopecia of pathologists, so called because it was said foxes were especially subject to baldness; or, as some think to express, by way of irony, that cunning and duplicity may be looked for in bald men. The ridicule and contempt which the ancients heaped upon these unfortunate individuals is very obvious. Among the Hebrews the term bald-pate was an insult and a reproach. The origin of this appears to have been that baldness was held to be the sign of a corrupt youth and a dissolute life. And when physiologists are asked to certify to the falsehood of such calumnies, they answer in riddles like the Sphinx.
“Turpe pecus mutilum, turpis sine gramine campus
Et sine fronde frutex, et sine crine caput.”