The human hair : popularly and physiologically considered with special reference to its preservation, improvement and adornment, and the various modes of its decoration in all countries / by Alexander Rowland.

  • Rowland, Alexander.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The human hair : popularly and physiologically considered with special reference to its preservation, improvement and adornment, and the various modes of its decoration in all countries / by Alexander Rowland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    structure, and again, in its early appearance in the progress of develop- ment of the young. As a bad conductor of heat, it tends to preserve the warmth of the body, and in man it would have that effect upon the head, and serve to equalise the temperature of the brain, it is also an agent of defence against external irritants—as the heat of the sun's rays, and the bites of insects; and against injuries inflicted with vio- lence, as we see illustrated in the use of the horses' tail on the helmets of warriors. Of special purposes fulfilled by the hairs, we have instances in the eyebrows and eyelids, which are beautifully adapted for the defence of the organs of vision; in the small hairs which grow in the apertures of the nostrils, and serve as guardians to the delicate membrane of the nose; and in similar hairs in the ear-tubes, which defend their cavities from the intrusion of insects. Among the larger mammiferous animals, the hair of the tail is used as a whisk to remove flies that pierce the skin to suck its blood or deposit eggs ; and in those parts of the body which the tail cannot reach, a flowing, or bushy mane serves to supply its place. By a power of conduction of outward im- pressions, common to the hairs with all rigid bodies, these organs are calculated to perform the office of an apparatus of touch. We feel distinctly the disturbance of the hairs of the head by the movements of a fly, although the little animal is at some distance from the skin; and, on a similar principle, the long and rigid hairs of the upper lip of feline animals are an agent of touch, transmitting whatever impression they receive, to the sensitive pidp upon which they are implanted. Indeed, animals of the cat tribe have the power of erecting their hairs and rendering them fixed, so that the slightest impression of contact is transferred to the nerves of the sensitive pulp. The hair has strong electric properties—witness the fact of stroking the hairs of a cat in the dark. Brushing and combing the hair have a soothing effect, and frequently lull to sleep. The following remarkable instance of the sensitiveness of the hair is derived from a perfectly authentic source— In the hospital of the Koyal Guards at Paris, was a private soldier who had received a violent kick on the back of the head from a horse. The excitement of the hair produced was extreme, and could only be kept under by almost innumerable bleedings, both local and general. Among a series of phenomena produced by this state of preternatural excitation, the sensibility acquired by the hairs of the head was not the least remarkable. The slightest touch was felt instantly, and cutting them gave exquisite pain, so that the patient