DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL CHIGNONS.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 18, 20 May 1867, Page 115

DANGERS OF ARTIFICIAL CHIGNONS.

[To the Editor of the Daily Telegraph.]

Snt, —Your fair readers, little a 3 they may at present be disposed to realise it, are under great obligations to you for the prominence you have given to the recent discovery of the dangers they run through wearing the now fashionabla chignon when not composed of their own hair. Being desirous to verify bf!my own observation the correctness of what I had long suspected, I purchased at a fashionable hair-dresser’s a chignon of very elaborate appearance, and submitted part of it to a very careful examination under one of Smith & Beck’s most powerful microscopes; and if you will kindly give the results to the world they may prove a warning to many of your lady readers. From the mass of hair composing the chignon I selected for experiment about 150 hairs, and commenced by carefully cleansing them from grease and other impurities in a tepid solution of potash, and drying them in a current of heated air. Upon submitting them, to examination by a moderate power, I found the hah’, wliich 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 visible. Upon carefully detaching some of these—an operation of great difficulty 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 “ gregavines.” As nearly as 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 substance. Having thus satisfied myself of their existence, I next proceeded to ascertain if they were possessed of vitality, and if so, how it might be called into action and by what means chemical or otherwise, destroyed.

Now it is well known that gentle and continued heat affords the most favourable condtions for the development of this class of , insect life. 1 therefore placed about a dozen ends of the hair between two pieces of 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 carefully shaved for the purpose—a number of hair ends, and placed the hen in front of a stove for about the same time. At, the end of this period the “ gregarines”. which had been placed in felt were carefully examined. They had undergone great developement, and more than a score showed unmistakeable signs of life. B ut on removing the hairs from the neck of the hen, and placing them under the microscope, a most extraordinary change in the ova appeared to, have -taken, place. . The hairs were swarming, with the released epizoa; nearly all, indeed were'more or less detached from the envelope, : and presented many of the unmistakable peculiarities of the-“pedi-culus humani capitis.” In many the mouth was furnished with a proboscis, the antennae as long as the thorax, and the depressed segments of the Abdomen, were clearly visible. It .was, abundantly evident that no process' to which the hair had as yet been submitted, had even impaired, much less destroyed,'the vitality of the "gregarines.” I cannot venture tq trespass upon your space by "giving a detailed account of the experiments made ; ascertain how this vitality could'be "destroyed";: suffice , it fo say that steeping in boiling water; and-.ex. posura to' a dry. beat of degrees .'Fahrenheit faiied to dp, so. v ; oopithe hj-chlonctp of meroury destroyed them completely ; also lone of the mineral acids; but xaoiitf

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 that many.: ladies are unsuspected Aipon their heads tl»>)geihiߣof an insect-life which may ; at |shy moment spring into a vitality that would prove distressing beyond measure; and be by ho means easy , to eradicate ; ..these horrible insects multiplying with almost inconceivable rapidity, and their generation being governed by no well ascertained law. Moreover, it is a question for the medical faculty, and it is well worth considering, whether the rumored re-appearance of the .most horriblo disease jihthiriasis —common among the ancients, and of which Herod Antiochus* Callistheues, and Sylla perished—is not owing to the wholesale wearing of the hair of the filthy Burlakes, of which so much is daily imported. The Phthirtis, though of a different genus from the pedicttlns capitis, yet mnch resembling it iu many radical points. I am, Sir, yours <fcc., Investigatob. Bayswater, February 11.

[From the Daily Telegraph.]

What do the fair wearers of chignons think of those deceitful embellishments now, when our quotations from the medical papers have b’ought out such fresh and terrible reve.atons as those we published yesterday? We had hoped that there might be some mistake about the horrid “ gregarines.” Science does go a little too fast occasionally, and it was shocking to believe that those glossy hypocrisies at the back of ladies’ heads could be nests of unmentionable animalsulse, bred in the unclean huts of Mongol or Calmuok peasants, and hatching, like eggs in a hydro-incuba-tor, on the warm necks of our ladies. But after the letter of our correspondent, ,f Investigator,” it seems but too true. He has not only found these vile insects on the most fashionable and best prepared chignon that he coidd procure but he has discovered Row they grow, and how long it takes before—horror of horrers!—they become injheir new home, so to speak “of age,” bl&Qm pediculi. At first they arc microscopic creatures, tiny dots on the extremity of each hair; when heat gradually warms their gelatinous envelope, they increase, get antennae, feet, organs of all kinds, and start upon their travels. Our correspondent bound some of them upoii the. neck of a hen, and actually witnessed this complete the influence of ths bird’s natural warmfh-of skin Who will wear a chignon, one wcekf one day, after this horrible experiment? Away with these abominable nests of foreign horrors, which cannot be killed by anything that does not spoil the gloss of the chignon —bad enough if it only came, as it often does, from corpses; bad enough if it were only, as it always is, a cheat; but worse than the grave, worse than dec tit can make it, when it is a trap for Calmuck ! Let our ladies hasten to return to their own safe and pleasant tresses for adornment; or who will dare to treasure a lock of them, or so much as to think upon “ the tangles of Netera’s hairP” If nothing can kill what comes over with the chignons let the chignons die out themselves.