"
He has sent me photographs of two women, 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 from a little distance,
a faithful representation of the original, with the exception
that the hair appears rather too coarse and too much curled.
The extraordinary condition of the hair in the insane is due,
not only to its erection, but to its dryness and harshness,
consequent on the subcutaneous glands failing to act.
Dr. Bucknill has said[20] that a lunatic "is a lunatic to his
finger's ends;" he might have added, and often to the extremity
of each particular hair.
Dr. Browne mentions as an empirical confirmation of the relation which exists
in the insane between the state of their hair and minds, that the wife
of a medical man, who has charge of a lady suffering from acute melancholia,
with a strong fear of death, for herself, her husband and children,
reported verbally to him the day before receiving my letter as follows,
"I think Mrs.
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