Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [140]
the result of fright or sudden emotions."
D'Alben, quoted by Fournier, describes a young man of twenty-four, an officer in the regiment of Touraine in 1781, who spent the night in carnal dissipation with a mulatto, after which he had violent spasms, rendering flexion of the body impossible. His beard and hair on the right side of the body was found as white as snow, the left side being unchanged. He appeared before the Faculte de Montpelier, and though cured of his nervous symptoms his hair was still white, and no suggestion of relief was offered him.
Louis of Bavaria, who died in 1294, on learning of the innocence of his wife, whom he had put to death on a suspicion of her infidelity, had a change of color in his hair, which became white almost immediately. Vauvilliers, the celebrated Hellenist, became white-haired almost immediately after a terrible dream, and Brizard, the comedian, experienced the same change after a narrow escape from drowning in the Rhone. The beard and the hair of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in twenty-four hours after hearing that his father had been mortally wounded at the battle of Auerstadt.
De Schweinitz speaks of a well-formed and healthy brunette of eighteen in whom the middle portion of the cilia of the right upper eyelid and a number of the hairs of the lower lid turned white in a week. Both eyes were myopic, but no other cause could be assigned. Another similar case is cited by Hirshberg, and the authors have seen similar cases. Thornton of Margate records the case of a lady in whom the hair of the left eyebrow and eyelashes began to turn white after a fortnight of sudden grief, and within a week all the hair of these regions was quite white and remained so. No other part was affected nor was there any other symptom. After a traumatic ophthalmitis of the left and sympathetic inflammation of the right eye in a boy of nine, Schenck observed that a group of cilia of the right upper lid and nearly all the lashes of the upper lid of the left eye, which had been enucleated, turned silvery-white in a short time. Ludwig has known the eyelashes to become white after small-pox. Communications are also on record of local decolorization of the eyebrows and lashes in neuralgias of isolated branches of the trigeminus, especially of the supraorbital nerve.
Temporary and Partial Canities.--Of special interest are those cases in which whiteness of the hair is only temporary. Thus, Compagne mentions a case in which the black hair of a woman of thirty-six began to fade on the twenty-third day of a malignant fever, and on the sixth day following was perfectly white, but on the seventh day the hairs became darker again, and on the fourteenth day after the change they had become as black as they were originally. Wilson records a case in which the hair lost its color in winter and regained it in summer. Sir John Forbes, according to Crocker, had gray hair for a long time, then suddenly it all turned white, and after remaining so for a year it returned to its original gray.
Grayness of the hair is sometimes only partial. According to Crocker an adult whose hair was generally brown had a tuft of white hair over the temple, and several like cases are on record. Lorry tells us that grayness of one side only is sometimes occasioned by severe headache. Hagedorn has known the beard to be black in one place and white in another. Brandis mentions the hair becoming white on one side of the face while it continued of its former color on the other. Rayer quotes cases of canities of the whole of one side of the body.
Richelot observed white mottling of hair in a girl sick with chlorosis. The whitening extended from the roots to a distance of two inches. The probable cause was a temporary alteration of the pigment-forming function. When the chlorosis was cured the natural color returned. Paullini and Riedlin, as well as the Ephemerides, speak of different colored hair in the same head, and it is not at all rare to see individuals with an anomalously colored patch of hair on the head. The members of the ancient
D'Alben, quoted by Fournier, describes a young man of twenty-four, an officer in the regiment of Touraine in 1781, who spent the night in carnal dissipation with a mulatto, after which he had violent spasms, rendering flexion of the body impossible. His beard and hair on the right side of the body was found as white as snow, the left side being unchanged. He appeared before the Faculte de Montpelier, and though cured of his nervous symptoms his hair was still white, and no suggestion of relief was offered him.
Louis of Bavaria, who died in 1294, on learning of the innocence of his wife, whom he had put to death on a suspicion of her infidelity, had a change of color in his hair, which became white almost immediately. Vauvilliers, the celebrated Hellenist, became white-haired almost immediately after a terrible dream, and Brizard, the comedian, experienced the same change after a narrow escape from drowning in the Rhone. The beard and the hair of the Duke of Brunswick whitened in twenty-four hours after hearing that his father had been mortally wounded at the battle of Auerstadt.
De Schweinitz speaks of a well-formed and healthy brunette of eighteen in whom the middle portion of the cilia of the right upper eyelid and a number of the hairs of the lower lid turned white in a week. Both eyes were myopic, but no other cause could be assigned. Another similar case is cited by Hirshberg, and the authors have seen similar cases. Thornton of Margate records the case of a lady in whom the hair of the left eyebrow and eyelashes began to turn white after a fortnight of sudden grief, and within a week all the hair of these regions was quite white and remained so. No other part was affected nor was there any other symptom. After a traumatic ophthalmitis of the left and sympathetic inflammation of the right eye in a boy of nine, Schenck observed that a group of cilia of the right upper lid and nearly all the lashes of the upper lid of the left eye, which had been enucleated, turned silvery-white in a short time. Ludwig has known the eyelashes to become white after small-pox. Communications are also on record of local decolorization of the eyebrows and lashes in neuralgias of isolated branches of the trigeminus, especially of the supraorbital nerve.
Temporary and Partial Canities.--Of special interest are those cases in which whiteness of the hair is only temporary. Thus, Compagne mentions a case in which the black hair of a woman of thirty-six began to fade on the twenty-third day of a malignant fever, and on the sixth day following was perfectly white, but on the seventh day the hairs became darker again, and on the fourteenth day after the change they had become as black as they were originally. Wilson records a case in which the hair lost its color in winter and regained it in summer. Sir John Forbes, according to Crocker, had gray hair for a long time, then suddenly it all turned white, and after remaining so for a year it returned to its original gray.
Grayness of the hair is sometimes only partial. According to Crocker an adult whose hair was generally brown had a tuft of white hair over the temple, and several like cases are on record. Lorry tells us that grayness of one side only is sometimes occasioned by severe headache. Hagedorn has known the beard to be black in one place and white in another. Brandis mentions the hair becoming white on one side of the face while it continued of its former color on the other. Rayer quotes cases of canities of the whole of one side of the body.
Richelot observed white mottling of hair in a girl sick with chlorosis. The whitening extended from the roots to a distance of two inches. The probable cause was a temporary alteration of the pigment-forming function. When the chlorosis was cured the natural color returned. Paullini and Riedlin, as well as the Ephemerides, speak of different colored hair in the same head, and it is not at all rare to see individuals with an anomalously colored patch of hair on the head. The members of the ancient