Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 1.djvu/845

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fnovv, in the manner of a nucleus or kerne), in the middle'- j They muft have fallen from a very considerable height, by the force with which they came down ; and it was obferved, that . the cloud of them palled more than fixty miles in length un- difperfedi The fea where it fell was raifcd up into the appear- ance of a wood of watery trees, and, in letter waters, the furface was darned up to the height of a yard or two in many places. The fea fowl fared the word of all creatures in this ftorm, and, having no fhelter to fly to, were deftroyed in fuch numbers, that the next tide brought them on fhore in heaps, and the people in Lancashire collected many bufhels of the eatable kinds. J?hil. Tranf. N°. 229. p. 574. HAIR [Cyd.) — It has been faid by many, that Hair, nails, feathers, &c. are not parts of the animal they belong to, but mere vegetable excrefcences ; and what argues greatly for this, is, that they are very well known to grow upon the body even after the deceafe of the animal.

The outer furface of the body is the natural place for Hair y but both that and teeth have been found in other parts, where the common courfe of nature never produces them. Amatus Luhtanus mentions a perfon who had Hair upon his tongue. Pliny and Valerius Maximus concur in their tefti monies, that the heart of Ariftomenes Meflenius was found hairy j and Caslius Rbodiginus relates the fame of Hermogenes the Rhe- torician, and Plutarch, of Leonidas, to omit a great many others. Amat. Lufitan. Cent. 6. Can. 65. Yakr. Max. I 1. c. 6.

Hairs are faid to have been frequently found in the breads of women, and to occafion the didemper called trichiafis ; but fome authors have been of opinion, that thefe are not Hairs^ but fmall worms. See Trichiasis.

There have been, however, various and indifputableobferva- tions of Hairs found in the kidneys, and voided by urine. Galen, A&uarius, Braffavolus, Fcrnelius, Scultetus, and Tulpius, are among the number of authors who give unque- ftionable indancesof it.

Hippocrates is of opinion, that the glandulous parts are molt fuL>j^£t to Hair ; but bundles of Hair have been found in the tnuicular part of beef, and in fuch parts of the human body as are as firm as that. Hair has often been found in abfeeffes and impoftumations, as the experience of furgeons in all ages has proved- Scultetus opening the abdomen of a woman, fund twelve pints of water, and a large lock or bundle of Hair fwimming loofe in it. But of all the internal parts, there is none fo fubjecT: to an unnatural growth of Hair as the ovaria, or tefticles of females. Dr. Tyfon gives three me- morable inftances of this, from his own obfervation. The firfr. in a bitch, which, on differing, appeared to have the omentum larger than ufual, and fattened very firmly to the inteftines, to the extremities of the cornua uteri, and to the right fide : Where the adhefion was, there was an inflamma- tion, and feveral fmall glands, and there was a great quantity of Hair growing there, fome on the omentum, fome on the cornua uteri, and others in the ovary ; feveral hairs alfo lay loofe in the veins, and two or three lay in the right ventricle of the heart, and feveral were rooted in fmall glands. The cornua uteri alfo were joined together at their extremities, and botii the tefticles made but one large and rude glandule, which had feveral finuous cavities within, filled with a purulent matter and Hair. In the cornua uteri there were the veftiges of former fcetus's. The creature was much emaciated in her hinder parts, and the Hair found in the feveral parts of the body was like that of the human fkin, and was about an inch and half long. The mod remarkable particular, in this crea- ture, was the Hair lying loofe in the veins ; but this is not a fmgle inftance of fuch a cafe. Cardan mentions his having found Hair in the blood of a Spaniard, and Slonacius in that of a gentlewoman of Cracovia ; and Scultetus declares, from his own obfervation, that thofe people who are afflicted with the plica polonica have very frequently Hair in their blood. Dr. Tyfon's fecond inftance is in the cafe of a young gentle- woman, at the diffecting of whom he was prefent with many other phyficians. She had died of a long and tedious illnefs, and, fearching for what might have been the caufe of it, they obferved a tumour in the right tediclc, or ovarium, which was fwelled into two veficles, or bags, almoft as large as a man's head ; thefe confided of a thin membrane, and iiad a free communication one with another within. They were filled with a matter much refembling curds and whey, for there were feveral lumps or pieces of a deatomatous or curdy matter fwimming in a clear lymph. Thefe lumps were fatty and foft to the touch, of a pale yellow colour, and of no re- markable ill fmell, and in part diflblved in warm water. One of thefe lumps was as large as a man's fid, and in this there lay a large quantity of Hair of a filvery colour, very fine and Jtrong, and fome of it was two foot long; there were fmaller parcels alfo of it in feveral other of the lumps of fatty matter, and thefe did not grow to any thing, but were quite loofe. On the outfide of the larger bag there was found the remaining part of the ovarium, or tediele, and in it feveral eggs, or hy- datides ; and befide thefe, there was a hard and folid bony fubdance, in all refpects refembling an eye tooth. This firmly adhered, at its bafis, to the membranes of the ovary, and had,

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at its fides, two other fmaller, but Iefa regularly mined teeth. r

The third obfervation was of a gentlewoman who had long complained of all the i'ymptoms of a Hone in the kidneys, as great pains, bloody urine, vomiting, &c. which, in ail pro- bability, were the principal caufe of her death : Upon opening her bod}', there was obferved, near the uterus, a cyflis, or hag, of the bignefs of a large turkey's egg j and in this there was a like fatty fubftance, with a large quantity of fine foft Hair, and a bone refembling, in fome fort, a mandible, with feveral fockets, in which were three denies molares in a triangle, and a fourth not yet grown out. Befide thefe, there was alfo found, in one of the kidneys, a large {lone. Befides thefe there are a number of inftances in the authors of the greateft credit in phyfic, of hair found in the ovaries ; but what beyond all other things proves that hair may grow with- out any affiftance of the circulating juices of the body, and be encreafed merely as an excrefcence of the vegetable kind from it, not as a part of it, is that memorable inftance, recited in Mr. Hook's philofophical collections, of a body, which after having been buried forty-three years, was found in a manner wholly converted into hair. The woman was bu- ried in a coffin of wood, and lay the loweft of three in the fame grave, there being two other coffins over hers; the bones of which being removed, and this coffin appearing, it was obferved that a great quantity of hair had grown out through the clefts of it. On removing the lid of the coffin, the whole appeared a very furprifing fight: there was the whole figure of the corpfe refembling perfectly the human fhape, exhibiting the eyes, mouth, ears, and every other part, but, from the very crown of the head to the fob of the foot, covered over with a very thick-fet hair. Ion? and much curled. The people who faw this, amazed at the ap- pearance, went to touch the corpfe, but the fhape fell away as it was handled, leaving only a quantity of (hapelefs hair without the leaft remainder of the bones, unlefs a fmall part of what they judged to be the great toe of the right foot. Hook' a Philof. Colleft. N° 2. p. 10.

Though we meet with feveral inftances of hairs being voided by urine in medical authors, yet Dr. Mortimer doubts of their being real hairs, and thinks them rather (lender gmmous concretions, formed only in the kidneys by being fqueezed out of the excretory duels into the pelvis. See Phil. Tranf. N° 460, p. 707. in the remark.

Hair microfeopicaUy examined. The hairs of different animals are very different in their appearance before the microfcope. Malpighi difcovered hairs to be tubular, or compofed of a number of extremely minute tubes or pipes ; this he difcover- ed in examining the hairs of the main and tail of a horfe, and the briftles of a boar ; and thefe tubes were much more dillinguiihable near the ends of the tubes than clfcwhere, as they there appeared more open, and fometimes above twenty ot them might be reckoned in one hair. In the hed^e-ho^'s prickles alio, which are of the nature of hairs, thefe tubes are very elegantly difcovered, and may be feen to have a me- dullary part, and valves, and cells. There are alfo in the hairs of many animals, in fome tranfverfe and in others fpi- ral lines, fomewhat of a darker colour, and running from top to bottom in a very elegant manner ; a moufe's hairs are of this fort, and appear in joints, as it were, like the back- bone ; they are not fmooth, but jagged on the fides, and ter- minate in the (harped point imaginable. The hairs taken from the moufe's belly are the leaft opake, and fitted for the microfcope. The hairs of men, and of horfes, Ihcep, &c. are compofed of fmall, long, tubular fibres or fmaller hairs en- compafled with a rind or bark ; and from this drucfure a fplit hair appears like a (lick fhivered by beating. They have roots of different kinds in different animals, and are always thicker at the middle than at either end. Baker's Microfc. p. 246. Hairs of the Indian deer are perforated from fide to fide, and thofe of our Englifli ones feem covered with a kind of 'fcaly bark or rind. The whifkers of a cat, cut tranfverfely, have in the middle fomething which refembles the pith of elder ; and the quills of the hedge-hog and porcupine have fomewhat of a pith in a ffarlike form. The hairs taken from the differ- ent parts of the human body, differ very much in their fi- gures, appearing like different fpecies of the fame genus in plants. Hook's Microgr. p. 157.

Difeafes of the Hair. Among the many remedies for difeafes of the hair, the following are recommended in the philofo- phical tranfacf ions. To make hair grow, take a quantity of the largeft and fined roots of the common burdock that can be collected ; let them be taken out of the ground in the month of December ; bruife them in a marble mortar, and boil them in a quantity of white-wine till there only re- mains as much as will cover them ; let this be carefully (trained off, and every night, going to bed, let the head be wafhed with fome of it warm. The other prefcription is this : Burn the (lender twigs of vines to allies, and boil thefe allies in fuch a quantity of common water as will make a llrong lye ; let this be drained clear off, and the head wafhed every night with fome of it warm. When the hair is good, but in danger of falling off by degrees, the afb.es of the vine branches