The fashion of tying the hair with a ribbon or fillet will cause the hair to fall out by compressing it and therefore interfering with its nutrition. If you remove the fillet occasionally, it will do no harm to the hair. Curling the fringe with hot tongs is a very common cause of bald foreheads. If the tongs are used properly, that is, if they are not overheated, they will do little or no damage to the hair. But usually women curl their hair with tongs that are nearly red-hot, thereby singeing and killing the hair, which consequently falls out, and in the end leaves the forehead bare. The commonest causes (and fortunately the easiest to remedy) of the hair falling out are affections of the scalp. Dandruff, scurf or seborrhœa, as it is better named, is a condition of the scalp in which the sebaceous glands, which secrete the oil which lubricates the hair, are out of gear. They secrete too much oil of a very inferior quality. The hair loses its lustre, becomes brittle, usually dark in colour, breaks, falls out, and becomes covered with scurf. What this is exactly due to is not known. It is probably the result of a microbe. It usually becomes manifest about the age of thirteen or thereabouts, and may exist throughout life. It can hardly be called a disease, but if neglected may lead to the various forms of eczema that attack the scalp. The treatment for this condition is to wash the hair about once a week with the following lotion: Borax, one tablespoonful; carbonate of soda, one teaspoonful; glycerine, two tablespoonfuls, and water to the quart. After washing and drying the head well, rub into the scalp a very little sulphur ointment. Often a girl will come complaining that her hair falls out from one part of her head, leaving a bald patch. This is called "alopœcia." Of its cause nothing is known. It is very common in girls when about fifteen years old, but it may occur at any age. The hair always grows again on the bald places, but it may not do so for a year or more. Painting the bald spot with a tincture of iodine is as good as anything, but it is Nature, and not drugs, that cures the affection. The colour of the hair is extremely variable, and not uncommonly it changes from one colour to another in a very short time. The hair, like every other coloured organ in the body, obtains its colour from the iron in the blood. One would therefore think that taking iron or improving the circulation would darken the hair. It will not do so. In anæmia, where the iron in the blood is very deficient, the hair remains unaltered! Severe emotion or sorrow will cause the hair to fade. Why it should do so we do not know, any more than why Father Time should meddle with it. The only way in which the colour of the hair can be altered voluntarily is by external applications. No hair dye is really satisfactory, and most of them are dangerous. The hair will, however, sometimes change its colour completely without any external help.