MINOR TERATA. 3 page

of a Percheron horse whose mane measured 13 feet and whose tail

measured almost ten feet, probably the greatest example of excessive

mane development on record. Figure 88 represents Miss Owens, an

exhibitionist, whose hair measured eight feet three inches. In Leslie's

Weekly, January 2, 1896, there is a portrait of an old negress named

Nancy Garrison whose woolly hair was equally as long.

The Ephemerides contains the account of a woman who had hair from the

mons veneris which hung to the knees; it was affected with plica

polonica, as was also the other hair of the body.

Rayer saw a Piedmontese of twenty-eight, with an athletic build, who

had but little beard or hair on the trunk, but whose scalp was covered

with a most extraordinary crop. It was extremely fine and silky, was

artificially frizzled, dark brown in color, and formed a mass nearly

five feet in circumference.

Certain pathologic conditions may give rise to accidental growths of

hair. Boyer was accustomed to quote in his lectures the case of a man

who, having an inflamed tumor in the thigh, perceived this part

becoming covered in a short time with numerous long hairs. Rayer speaks

of several instances of this kind. In one the part affected by a

blister in a child of two became covered with hair. Another instance

was that of a student of medicine, who after bathing in the sea for a

length of time, and exposing himself to the hot sun, became affected

with coppery patches, from which there sprang a growth of hair.

Bricheteau, quoted by the same authority, speaks of a woman of

twenty-four, having white skin and hair of deep black, who after a long

illness occasioned by an affection analogous to marasmus became

covered, especially on the back, breast, and abdomen, with a multitude

of small elevations similar to those which appear on exposure to cold.

These little elevations became brownish at the end of a few days, and

short, fair, silky hair was observed on the summit of each, which grew

so rapidly that the whole surface of the body with the exception of the

hands and face became velvety. The hair thus evolved was afterward

thrown out spontaneously and was not afterward reproduced.

Anomalies of the Color of the Hair.--New-born infants sometimes have

tufts of hair on their heads which are perfectly white in color.

Schenck speaks of a young man whose beard from its first appearance

grew white. Young men from eighteen to twenty occasionally become gray;

and according to Rayer, paroxysms of rage, unexpected and unwelcome

news, diseases of the scalp such as favus, wounds of the head, habitual

headache, over-indulgence of the sexual appetite, mercurial courses too

frequently repeated, too great anxiety, etc., have been known to blanch

the hair prematurely.

The well-accepted fact of the sudden changing of the color of the hair

from violent emotions or other causes has always excited great

interest, and many ingenious explanations have been devised to account

for it. There is a record in the time of Charles V of a young man who

was committed to prison in 1546 for seducing his girl companion, and

while there was in great fear and grief, expecting a death-sentence

from the Emperor the next day. When brought before his judge, his face

was wan and pale and his hair and beard gray, the change having taken

place in the night. His beard was filthy with drivel, and the Emperor,

moved by his pitiful condition, pardoned him. There was a clergyman of

Nottingham whose daughter at the age of thirteen experienced a change

from jet-blackness of the hair to white in a single night, but this was

confined to a spot on the back of the head 1 1/2 inches in length. Her

hair soon became striped, and in seven years was totally white. The

same article speaks of a girl in Bedfordshire, Maria Seeley, aged

eight, whose face was swarthy, and whose hair was long and dark on one

side and light and short on the other. One side of her body was also

brown, while the other side was light and fair. She was seen by the

faculty in London, but no cause could be established.

Voigtel mentions the occurrence of canities almost suddenly. Bichat

had a personal acquaintance whose hair became almost entirely gray in

consequence of some distressing news that reached him. Cassan records a

similar case. According to Rayer, a woman by the name of Perat,

summoned before the Chamber of Peers to give evidence in the trial of

the assassin Louvel, was so much affected that her hair became entirely

white in a single night Byron makes mention of this peculiar anomaly in

the opening stanzas of the "Prisoner of Chillon:"--

"My hair is gray, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single

night. As men's have grown from sudden fears."

The commentators say that Byron had reference to Ludovico Sforza and

others. The fact of the change is asserted of Marie Antoinette, the

wife of Louis XVI, though in not quite so short a period, grief and not

fear being the cause. Ziemssen cites Landois' case of a compositor of

thirty-four who was admitted to a hospital July 9th with symptoms of

delirium tremens; until improvement began to set in (July 13th) he was

continually tormented by terrifying pictures of the imagination. In the

night preceding the day last mentioned the hair of the head and beard

of the patient, formerly blond, became gray. Accurate examination by

Landois showed the pigment contents of the hair to be unchanged, and

led him to believe that the white color was solely due to the excessive

development of air-bubbles in the hair shaft. Popular belief brings the

premature and especially the sudden whitening into connection with

depressing mental emotions. We might quote the German

expression--"Sich graue Haare etwas wachsen lassen" ("To worry one's

self gray"). Brown-Sequard observed on several occasions in his own

dark beard hairs which had turned white in a night and which he

epileptoid. He closes his brief communication on the subject with the

belief that it is quite possible for black hair to turn white in one

night or even in a less time, although Hebra and Kaposi discredit

sudden canities (Duhring). Raymond and Vulpian observed a lady of

neurotic type whose hair during a severe paroxysm of neuralgia

following a mental strain changed color in five hours over the entire

scalp except on the back and sides; most of the hair changed from black

to red, but some to quite white, and in two days all the red hair

became white and a quantity fell off. The patient recovered her general

health, but with almost total loss of hair, only a few red, white, and

black hairs remaining on the occipital and temporal regions. Crocker

cites the case of a Spanish cock which was nearly killed by some pigs.

The morning after the adventure the feathers of the head had become

completely white, and about half of those on the back of the neck were

also changed.

Dewees reports a case of puerperal convulsions in a patient under his

care which was attended with sudden canities. From 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. 50

ounces of blood were taken. Between the time of Dr. Dewees' visits, not

more than an hour, the hair anterior to the coronal suture turned

white. The next day it was less light, and in four or five days was

nearly its natural color. He also mentions two cases of sudden

blanching from fright.

Fowler mentions the case of a healthy girl of sixteen who found one

morning while combing her hair, which was black, that a strip the whole

length of the back hair was white, starting from a surface about two

inches square around the occipital protuberance. Two weeks later she

had patches of ephelis over the whole body.

Prentiss, in Science, October 3, 1890, has collected numerous instances

of sudden canities, several of which will be given:--

"In the Canada Journal of Medical Science, 1882, p. 113, is reported a

case of sudden canities due to business-worry. The microscope showed a

great many air-vesicles both in the medullary substance and between the

medullary and cortical substance.

"In the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1851, is reported a case

of a man thirty years old, whose hair 'was scared' white in a day by a

grizzly bear. He was sick in a mining camp, was left alone, and fell

asleep. On waking he found a grizzly bear standing over him.

"A second case is that of a man of twenty-three years who was gambling

in California. He placed his entire savings of $1100 on the turn of a

card. He was under tremendous nervous excitement while the cards were

being dealt. The next day his hair was perfectly white.

"In the same article is the statement that the jet-black hair of the

Pacific Islanders does not turn gray gradually, but when it does turn

it is sudden, usually 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 house of Rohan were said to possess a tuft of

white hair on the front of their heads.

Michelson of Konigsberg describes a curious case in a barrister of

twenty-three affected with partial canities. In the family of both

parents there was stated to be congenital premature canities, and some

white hairs had been observed even in childhood. In the fifteenth year,

after a grave attack of scarlet fever, the hair to a great extent fell

out. The succeeding growth of hair was stated to have been throughout

lighter in tissue and color and fissured at the points. Soon after

bunches of white hair appeared on the occiput, and in the succeeding

years small patches of decolored hairs were observed also on the

anterior and lateral portions of the scalp. In the spring of 1880 the

patient exhibited signs of infiltration of the apex of the right lung,

and afterward a violent headache came on. At the time of the report the

patient presented the appearance shown in Figure 89. The complexion

was delicate throughout, the eyelashes and eyelids dark brown, the

moustache and whiskers blond, and in the latter were a few groups of

white hair. The white patches were chiefly on the left side of the

head. The hairs growing on them were unpigmented, but otherwise normal.

The patient stated that his head never sweated. He was stout and

exhibited no signs of internal disease, except at the apex of the right

lung.

Anomalous Color Changes of the Hair.--The hair is liable to undergo

certain changes of color connected with some modification of that part

of the bulb secreting its coloring-matter. Alibert, quoted by Rayer,

gives us a report of the case of a young lady who, after a severe fever

which followed a very difficult labor, lost a fine head of hair during

a discharge of viscid fluid, which inundated the head in every part. He

tells us, further, that the hair grew again of a deep black color after

the recovery of the patient. The same writer tells of the case of James

B--, born with brown hair, who, having lost it all during the course of

a sickness, had it replaced with a crop of the brightest red. White

and gray hair has also, under peculiar circumstances, been replaced by

hair of the same color as the individual had in youth. We are even

assured by Bruley that in 1798 the white hair of a woman sixty years of

age changed to black a few days before her death. The bulbs in this

case were found of great size, and appeared gorged with a substance

from which the hair derived its color. The white hairs that remained,

on the contrary, grew from shriveled bulbs much smaller than those

producing the black. This patient died of phthisis.

A very singular case, published early in the century, was that of a

woman whose hair, naturally fair, assumed a tawny red color as often as

she was affected with a certain fever, and returned to its natural hue

as soon as the symptoms abated. Villerme alludes to the case of a young

lady, sixteen years of age, who had never suffered except from trifling

headaches, and who, in the winter of 1817, perceived that the hair

began to fall out from several parts of her head, so that before six

months were over she became entirely bald. In the beginning of January,

1819, her head became covered with a kind of black wool over those

places that were first denuded, and light brown hair began to develop

from the rest of the scalp. Some of this fell out again when it had

grown from three to four inches; the rest changed color at different

distances from its end and grew of a chestnut color from the roots. The

hair, half black, half chestnut, had a very singular appearance.

Alibert and Beigel relate cases of women with blond hair which all came

off after a severe fever (typhus in one case), and when it grew again

it was quite black. Alibert also saw a young man who lost his brown

hair after an illness, and after restoration it became red. According

to Crocker, in an idiotic girl of epileptic type (in an asylum at

Edinburgh), with alternating phases of stupidity and excitement, the

hair in the stupid phase was blond and in the excited condition red.

The change of color took place in the course of two or three days,

beginning first at the free ends, and remaining of the same tint for

seven or eight days. The pale hairs had more air-spaces than the darker

ones. There was much structural change in the brain and spinal cord.

Smyly of Dublin reported a case of suppurative disease of the temporal

bone, in which the hair changed from a mouse-color to a reddish-brown;

and Squire records a congenital case in a deaf mute, in whom the hair

on the left side was in light patches of true auburn and dark patches

of dark brown like a tortoise-shell cap; on the other side the hair was

a dark brown. Crocker mentions the changes which have occurred in rare

instances after death from dark brown to red.

Chemic colorations of various tints occur. Blue hair is seen in workers

in cobalt mines and indigo works; green hair in copper smelters; deep

red-brown hair in handlers of crude anilin; and the hair is dyed a

purplish-brown whenever chrysarobin applications used on a scalp come

in contact with an alkali, as when washed with soap. Among such cases

in older literature Blanchard and Marcellus Donatus speak of green

hair; Rosse saw two instances of the same, for one of which he could

find no cause; the other patient worked in a brass foundry.

Many curious causes are given for alopecia. Gilibert and Merlet mention

sexual excess; Marcellus Donatus gives fear; the Ephemerides speaks of

baldness from fright; and Leo Africanus, in his description of Barbary,

describes endemic baldness. Neyronis makes the following observation: A

man of seventy-three, convalescent from a fever, one morning, about six

months after recovery perceived that he had lost all his hair, even his

eyelashes, eyebrows, nostril-hairs, etc. Although his health continued

good, the hair was never renewed.

The principal anomalies of the nails observed are absence, hypertrophy,

and displacement of these organs. Some persons are born with

finger-nails and toe-nails either very rudimentary or entirely absent;

in others they are of great length and thickness. The Chinese nobility

allow their finger-nails to grow to a great length and spend much time

in the care of these nails. Some savage tribes have long and thick

nails resembling the claws of beasts, and use them in the same way as

the lower animals. There is a description of a person with

finger-nails that resembled the horns of a goat.

Neuhof, in his books on Tartary and China, says that many Chinamen have

two nails on the little toe, and other instances of double nails have

been reported.

The nails may be reversed or arise from anomalous positions.

Bartholinus speaks of nails from the inner side of the digits; in

another case, in which the fingers were wanting, he found the nails

implanted on the stumps. Tulpius says he knew of a case in which nails

came from the articulations of three digits; and many other curious

arrangements of nails are to be found.

Rouhuot sent a description and drawing of some monstrous nails to the

Academie des Sciences de Paris. The largest of these was the left great

toe-nail, which, from its extremity to its root, measured 4 3/4 inches;

the laminae of which it consisted were placed one over the other, like

the tiles on a roof, only reversed. This nail and several of the others

were of unequal thickness and were variously curved, probably on

account of the pressure of the shoe or the neighboring digits. Rayer

mentions two nails sent to him by Bricheteau, physician of the Hopital

Necker, belonging to an old woman who had lived in the Salpetriere.

They were very thick and spirally twisted, like the horns of a ram.

Saviard informs us that he saw a patient at the Hotel Dieu who had a

horn like that of a ram, instead of a nail, on each great toe, the

extremities of which were turned to the metatarsus and overlapped the

whole of the other toes of each foot. The skeleton of Simore, preserved

in Paris, is remarkable for the ankylosis of all the articulations and

the considerable size of all the nails. The fingers and toes, spread

out and ankylosed, ended in nails of great length and nearly of equal

thickness. A woman by the name of Melin, living in the last century in

Paris, was surnamed "the woman with nails;" according to the

description given by Saillant in 1776 she presented another and not

less curious instance of the excessive growth of the nails.

Musaeus gives an account of the nails of a girl of twenty, which grew

to such a size that some of those of the fingers were five inches in

length. They were composed of several layers, whitish interiorly,

reddish-gray on the exterior, and full of black points. These nails

fell off at the end of four months and were succeeded by others. There

were also horny laminae on the knees and shoulders and elbows which

bore a resemblance to nails, or rather talons. They were sensitive only

at the point of insertion into the skin. Various other parts of the

body, particularly the backs of the hands, presented these horny

productions. One of them was four inches in length. This horny growth

appeared after small-pox. Ash, in the Philosophical Transactions,

records a somewhat similar case in a girl of twelve.

Anomalies of the Teeth.--Pliny, Colombus, van Swieten, Haller,

Marcellus Donatus, Baudelocque, Soemmering, and Gardien all cite

instances in which children have come into the world with several teeth

already erupted. Haller has collected 19 cases of children born with

teeth. Polydorus Virgilus describes an infant who was born with six

teeth. Some celebrated men are supposed to have been born with teeth;

Louis XIV was accredited with having two teeth at birth. Bigot, a

physician and philosopher of the sixteenth century; Boyd, the poet;

Valerian, Richard III, as well as some of the ancient Greeks and

Romans, were reputed to have had this anomaly. The significance of the

natal eruption of teeth is not always that of vigor, as many of the

subjects succumb early in life. There were two cases typical of fetal

dentition shown before the Academie de Medecine de Paris. One of the

subjects had two middle incisors in the lower jaw and the other had one

tooth well through. Levison saw a female born with two central incisors

in the lower jaw.

Thomas mentions a case of antenatal development of nine teeth. Puech,

Mattei, Dumas, Belluzi, and others report the eruption of teeth in the

newborn. In Dumas' case the teeth had to be extracted on account of

ulceration of the tongue. Instances of triple dentition late in life

are quite numerous, many occurring after a hundred years. Mentzelius

speaks of a man of one hundred and ten who had nine new teeth. Lord

Bacon cites the case of a Countess Desmond, who when over a century old

had two new teeth; Hufeland saw an instance of dentition at one hundred

and sixteen; Nitzsch speaks of one at one hundred, and the Ephemerides

contain an account of a triple dentition at one hundred and twenty.

There is an account of a country laborer who lost all his teeth by the

time he arrived at his sixtieth year of age, but about a half year

afterward a new set made their appearance. Bisset mentions an account

of an old woman who acquired twelve molar teeth at the age of

ninety-eight. Carre notes a case of dental eruption in an individual of

eighty-five. Mazzoti speaks of a third dentition, and Ysabeau writes of

dentition of a molar at the age of ninety-two. There is a record of a

physician of the name of Slave who retained all his second teeth until

the age of eighty, when they fell out; after five years another set

appeared, which he retained until his death at one hundred. In the same

report there is mentioned an old Scotchman who died at one hundred and

ten, whose teeth were renewed at an advanced age after he had lost his

second teeth. One of the older journals speaks of dentition at seventy,

eighty-four, ninety, and one hundred and fourteen. The Philosophical

Transactions of London contain accounts of dentition at seventy-five

and eighty-one. Bassett tells of an old woman who had twelve molar

teeth at the age of eighty-eight. In France there is recorded dentition

at eighty-five and an account of an old man of seventy-three who had

six new teeth. Von Helmont relates an instance of triple dentition at

the same age. There is recorded in Germany an account of a woman of

ninety who had dentition at forty-seven and sixty-seven, each time a

new set of teeth appearing; Hunter and Petrequin have observed similar

cases. Carter describes an example of third dentition. Lison makes a

curious observation of a sixth dentition.

Edentulousness.--We have already noticed the association of congenital

alopecia with edentulousness, but, strange to say, Magitot has remarked

that "l'homme-chien," was the subject of defective dentition. Borellus

found atrophy of all the dental follicles in a woman of sixty who never

had possessed any teeth. Fanton-Touvet saw a boy of nine who had never

had teeth, and Fox a woman who had but four in both jaws; Tomes cites

several similar instances. Hutchinson speaks of a child who was

perfectly edentulous as to temporary teeth, but who had the permanent

teeth duly and fully erupted. Guilford describes a man of forty-eight,

who was edentulous from birth, who also totally lacked the sense of

smell, and was almost without the sense of taste; the surface of his

body was covered with fine hairs and he had never had visible

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