Why Your Hair Goes Gray

Hokitika Guardian, 15 June 1922, Page 4

Why Your Hair Goes Gray

(By a Physician)

Greyness of the hair is most commonly a consequence of advancing years, although it also occurs prematurely in.young and middle-aged adults. lit some instances the change is a. gradual one, involving all the hairs, or practically so, in a slow and scarcely perceptible' progress towards general

B/iit more usually scattered hairs first show the change, new ones being added to these and so on until all are involve! in the jnoecss. In other cases certain parts of the scalp, especially the temples, show the dc'pigmeutiition first, while the others remain hut little changed from the original colour. Condition.- varying from slight bhineiii'i g io complete groynes* or v. liitcncss are observed.

In ordinary .greying, when the loss of pigment takes, place slowly, a close examination of the haiis often shows them to he speckled with grey, producing vn.ious shades from this lo the original colour.

Sometimes after a icrtain degree of greyness or grey sprinkling has eiisned. Nature holds her hand for a time, hut the rule is for the change to he progressive.

The question of the possibility of sudden greying of the hair is one that has been considerably discussed and still lias many doubters. Indeed, the medical literature on the subject furnishes us with a number of examples in which the change to gre.vness was noted to occur within the since of a few hours or days. In one ol these cases, as the result of sudden fir-'ii i ii disaster, a woman’s hair turned grey in a night and snhseqi ently fell out.

It is well known that severe illness is oi'un t’lie turning-point, and, iri addition, excessive mental work, prolonged anxiety, ami nervous shock all tend to hasten the r.roc.ss of greying. Greying of the hair has been variously attributed to lack of pigment product ioji and the presence of minute air hubbies iu the hair substance. In all proh.J.ilßy both faclors arc at work. Certain it is that whatever the amount of pigment contained in the l air I'e c.J uir is materially alfeeted by t 1 c quantity of air bubbles present. This gives us a possible explanation for the sudden blanching in that the rapid formation or collection of air bubbles between the .outermost cells of the hair substances by rendering litem opaque would obscure the pigment. Graying of the hair is usually prngirssive and permanent, and only tu esc |i! iduai cases is there any return Pi the original crlnur when it lias once been lost. In one case, however, a mail's scalp hair and beard chan ‘vd from black ' ) white and the revese three Hints iu thirty car- ; the change in grey 1 eni'C rapid, while that to black again iequiicil from four tu live years. Other, such cases where there has been a return to U " original eilonr are know n, blit they mv- t all I e considered a., curiosities. Hie !" '<■ il peiinanetiey being practically absolute.