Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1887 — Why Are Ye Bald. [ARTICLE]

Why Are Ye Bald.

Men become bald! Why? Because they wear close hats and oape. Women are never bald. Sometimes from long continued headaohe, heat in the scalp, bad hair-dressing, and some other cau-es, women may have bare spots here and there; but with all these causes combined, you never see a woman with a bare, shiny, bald head. And you never see a man lose a hair below where the hat touches his skull. It will take it off as clean as you can shave it, down to exactly that line, but never a hair below, not if he has been bald fifty year-.

The common stiff black hat, as impervious as sheet iron, retains the heat 'and. le. p ration. The little hair glands, which 1 ear the same relation to the hair that tin- seed wheat does to the plant above ground, become weak from the presence of the moisture and heat, and finally fail to sustain the hair. It falls out and baldness exists. A fur cap I have kn -wn to produce baldness in a single winter. A man with a good head of hair needs very little protection where the hair grows. Women, who live much within doors, and who are therefore peculiarly susceptible to the cold, oil their hair and plaster it down hard and flat upon their skulls, so as to destroy ninetenths of its power as a non-conductor, have worn for years postage-stamp bonnets stuck on the back of their heads, exnosing the whole tops of their skulls, and then, going out of furnace heated parlors, have ridden for hours in a very cold temperature without taking cold and without complaint. Man, with his greater vigor and habits of outdoor life, and with his hair not plastered down, hut thrown up loose and light, could on doubt go to the north pole, so far as that part of his person is concerned, without any artificial covering. And yet we men wear thick fur caps, and what amounts to sheet iron hats, and do not dare step out in a chilly atmosphere a moment lest we take cold. It is silly, weak, and really a serious error. The Creator knew what he was about when He covered a man’s skull with hair. It has a very important function in protecting the brain. Baldness is a serious misfortune. It will never occur in any man who will wear such a hat as I do—a common black high silk hat with five hundred holes through the top, so that there will be more hole than hat. This costs nothing; the hatter will do it for you when you purchase your hat. If the nap be combed back the wrong way, and if after the holes are made it bo oombed the right way, no one will ever observe the peculiarity. They will wear quite as long—the hatters say considerable longer—because it is dry instead of moist; in brief, there is not a single objection to it, while it will certainly prevent baldness and keep the nap of tne head cool, and prevent muoh headache. While discussing the subject of our hair, I would remark that the back of the neck should be protected in the winter against cold and in the summer against great heat. Nothing can accomplish this uniformly and perfectly but the hair. The custom of shingling off the hair from the back of the neck is unphvsiological.and it should in both sexes be allowed to fall low enough to cover the nape or meet the usual dress. Dio Lewis’ Monthly