a. Precocity of Wrinkles.—This is an indication of rapid involution, and is frequently met with in degenerates. Idiotic children often show a flabby, shrivelled skin, overstrewn with a multitude of wrinkles that give them the aspect of little old men.
b. Anomalies: the following are to be specially noted:
- Transverse wrinkles on the nose, frequent in flat-nosed idiots.
- Wrinkles on the forehead; in normal persons these are interrupted and broken, they are not quite parallel, nor perfectly horizontal, nor very deep.
In degenerates it is frequently noticed that the wrinkles on the forehead form one continuous horizontal line, extending completely across it; sometimes it is so deep that it seems to divide the forehead transversely into two parts. The various wrinkles, straight and unbroken, are quite parallel.
3. The zygomatic (cheek-bone) wrinkles and the wrinkles around the mouth are extremely deep in mentally defective adult and aged persons, and also in criminals, whose facial expression is especially active in the region of the nose and mouth, which constitute the least contemplative portion of the face.
Anomalies of the Hair.—1. Quantity.—The quantity of hair may be excessive—polytrichia, a mark of degeneration easily to be met with among delinquents and prostitutes; or there may be a scarcity of hair—atrichia, among neuropaths, feeble-minded and cretins. Sometimes, precocious baldness occurs, as a result of defective nutrition of the skin.
Fig. 131.—Showing various types of the line of roots of the hair.
2. Disposition.—We should note: a. the line of roots of the hair; b. the vortices.
a. Line of Roots.—This may be situated too far down upon the forehead, in which case it gives a false impression of a low forehead, or too far back, in which case it gives a false impression of a high forehead.