DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL CHIGNONS.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume IX, Issue 477, 20 May 1867, Page 3

DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL CHIGNONS.

[To the Editor of tbe Daily Telegraph]

Silt, —Your fair readers, little as they mat at present be disposed to realise it, are under great obligations to you for the prominence you have given to the recent discovery of tiie dangers they run through wearing the now fashionable chignon when not composed of their own hair. Being desirous to verify by my own ob serration the correctness of what I had long suspected, I purchased at a fashionable hair dresser’* a chignon of very e’alorate appearance, and submitted part of it to a very careful examination under one o( Smith A Beck’s most powerful microscopes j and if you will kindly give tho results to the wo'dd they may provo a warning te many of your lady readers. From the mass of hair composing the chignon I selected for experiment about 159 hairs, and commenced by carefully cleansing them from grease and other ini purities in a tepid solution of potash, and drying them in a current of heated air. Upon submitting them to examination by a moderate power, 1 found the hair, widen was of a dark brown color and fine texture, perfectly clean and free from any parasitical appendages until within half an inch of what was evidently the natural end of the hair; when a multitude of small dark knots or protuberances on the outer cortical were vi-ible. Upon carefully detaching some of lhe=e—an operation of groat ditfieu’.ty and delicacy—and placing them on an object glass under a much higher power, it was evident that they were innumerable ■specimens of the so-called “ gregarines.” A* nearly ns I could estimate, half an inch of a single hair would yield over a thousand of these disgusting epizoa in their embryo condition, and enveloped in a glutinous -übstanec. Having thus satisfied inys.-ll of their existence, 1 next proceeded to a* certain if they were posscMed of vitality, and if so, how it might be culled into action and by what means chemical or otherwise, destroyed. Now it is well known that gcntl# and continued heat affords tho most favourable condl ioi.j for the development of this class of inicct life. 1 therefore placed about o dozen ends of tho hair between two pieceof felt slightly oiled, and submitted it to a moist heat of 120 degrees for six hours ; and also bound upon the neck of a common hen—a convenient place having been care fully shaved for the purpose—a number of hair cuds, and placed the hen in front of n stove for about tho same time. At the end of this period tho “gregarines” which had beea placed in felt were carefully examined. They had undergone great flevolopement, and more than a scoro showed unmistakeable signs of life. But on removing the hairs from the neck of tho hen, ami placing (hem under the microscope, a most extraordinary change in the ova appeared to have taken place. Tho hairs were swarming with the relea«ed epizoa; nearly a l l, indeed were more or less detached from Tho envelope, and presented many of the j unmistakable peculiarities of tho “pccliicuius human! capitis.” In many the mouth ] was furnished with a proboscis, the antcimse las long as the thorax, and the depressed j segments of the abdomen, were clearly visi:b!e. It was abundantly evident that no j process to which the hair had as yet been submitted had even impaired, much less destroyed, the vitality of the “gregarines.” I cannot vent ire to trespass upon your space by giving a detailed account of the experiments made to ascertain how this vitality could bo destroyed ; suffice it to say that steeping in boiling water, and ex> posurc to a dry beat of 369 degrees Fahrenheit totally fai ed to do so. The compound ethers, benzole and tho bi-chloride of mercury destroyed them completely ; as also some of the mineral acids ; but most of these would of course render the hair worthless to the chignon-maker, the beauty of its appearance being entirely destroyed. I regard these experiments as fully demonstrating the fact, that many ladies arc wearing, perfectly unsuspected, upon their heads the germs of an insect life which may at any moment spring into a vitality that would prove distressing beyond measure. and be by no means easy to eradicate ; these horrible insects mnltiplying with almost inconceivable rapidity, and their ccnration being governed by no wel ascertained law. Moreover, it is a ques tion for the medical faculty, and it ncli worth considering, whether tho rumorta rc-appcarar.ce of the most horrible disease phthiriads— common among the .ancients, and of which Herod AntiochuA OaDiMbenes. and Sr 11a perished—is not! owing to tho wholesale wearing of the hairj

jof the filthy Burlakes, of which so ranch is daily imported. Tho Phthirv.s, though of a dusretit genua from the pedicuhis capitis, ys, sullen resembling it in many radical point*.

I am, Sir, yours &c., „ InvEsrioiroa, ( Bayswater, February 11. » 1 from the Daily Telegraph.] ; do th o f air wearers of chignons think of those deceitful embellishments now. ■ when our quotations from the medical 1 fPf” ,I3V « brought out such fresh and tern hi#* ir*r»Q oa , , , i’ i V wluou "c (iUuiisueu yesterday? We had hoped that there i might bo some mistake tbo i. e-v . r ;,i “gregarines.” Science does go ahtthtoo IHv ° ccasional! J. and it was shocking to beuevo that those glossy hypocrisies at°finback of ladies’ heads could be nests of uui nientionable aniraalciilm, bred in the unclean huts of Mongol or Calmuok peasants and hatching, like eggs in a hydro-incuba-tor, on tho warm nocks of our ladies. But after the letter of our corrospondent, “ Investigator,” it seems but too true. He has not only found these vile insects on the most fashionable and best prepared chignon that ho could procure but ho has discovered how they grow, and how Ion"- it takes before—horror of horrers!—the/become in their new home, so to speak “of age.” adult psdietdi. At first they are microscopic creatures, tiny dot* on the extremity of each hair; when heat gradually warms their gelatinous envelope, they increase, get antennas, feet, organa of all kinds, and start upon their travel-!. Our correspondent bound some of them upon flip neck of a hen, and actually witnessed this complete developement, under the influence of the bird’s natural warmth of skin Who will wear a chignon, one week, one day, after this horrible experiment? Away with these abominable nests of foreign horrors, wh;-h cannot bo killed by anything that does not spoil the gloss of tho chignon la I enough if it only came, as it often Joss, from corpse* ; bad enough if it were only, as it always is, a cheat; but worse than the grave, worse than deceit can make it, when it is a trap for C.ilnmck ! Let our ladies hasten to return to their own safe aim pleasant tresses for adornment; or who will dare to treasure a lock of them, or so much as to think upon “the tangles of Neera’s hair?” If nothing can kill wmat comes over with tho chignons let tho chignons die out themselves.