Anomalies and Curiosities of MedicineGould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Science
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine
Gould, George M. (George Milbrey)
Abnormalities, Human; Medicine -- Anecdotes
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.
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