OCR Text |
Show 296 FEAR. CHAP. xu. seen in chronic maniacs, who rave'incoherently and have destructive impulses ; but it is during their paroxysms of violence that the bristling is most observable. The fact of the hair becoming erect under the influence both of rage and fear agrees perfectly with what we have seen in the lower anin1als. Dr. Browne adduces several cases in evidence. Thus with a man now in the Asylum, before the recurrence of each maniacal paroxysm, " the hair "rises up from his forehead like the mane of a Shetland "pony." He has sent me photographs of two wo1nen, taken in the intervals between their paroxysms, and he adds with respect to one of these women, " that the " state of her hair is a sure and convenient criterion ''of her mental condition." I have had one of these photographs copied, and the engraving gives, if viewed Flg. 19. }'rom a photograph of an insane woman, to show the condition of her hair. from a little distance, a faithful representation of the original, with the exception that the hair appears 1·ather too coarse and too much curled. The extraordinary condition of the hair in the insane is. due, not CHAP. XII. ERECTION OF THE HAIR. 297 only to its erection, but to its dryness and harshness, consequent on the ubcutan ou glands failing to act. Dr. Bucknill has aid 20 that a lunatic "i a lunati to " his fing r's _ends;" he might have add d, and often to the xtre1n1ty of ach particular hair. Dr. Br wne 1nentions as an empirical confirmation of tbe relation which exists in the in.:ane between the state of their hair and minds, that the wife of a m dical man, who has charge of a lady sufi'erinD" from acute melancholia, with a strong fear of death, for herself~ her husband and children, r ported verbally to him the day b fore r ceiving my letter as follows, "I think '' Mrs. -- will soon improve, for her hair is getting •' smooth; and I always notice that our pati nts get '' better whenev r their hair c ases to be rough and " unmanageable." Dr. Browne attributes the persi t ntly rough conditio~ of .the hai.r in maHy insane patients, in part to theu· m1nds be1ng always somewhat disturbell, and in ~art to the effects of hal>it,-that is, to the hair being 1requ utly and strongly erected during their many r~current ~ar?xysms. In patients in whom the bri tling of the han~ IS extreme, the disease is generally permanent and mortal; but in others, in whom the Lristling is moderate, as soon as th .y recover their health of mind the hair recovees Hs smoothness. In a previous chapter \Ve have seen that with animal the hairs are erect d by tl1e contraction of minute, unstriped, and involuntary muscles, which run to each s parate follicle. In addition to this action, 1\fr. J. Wood has clearly ascertained by xperimeut, as he informs me, that with man the hairs on the front of the head which slope forwards, and those on the back ------- 20 Quoted by Dr. Maudsley, 'Body and :1\Iin<l,' 1870, p. 41. |