Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/305

 cause—be sure of that; and be sure that if the cause is removed the hair will regain its vigor. The cause may lie in the condition of the scalp itself, or, so intimate is the sympathy of all parts of this body of ours, it may depend upon the disturbed action of some remote internal organ.

It may seem strange to say that dyspepsia is a frequent cause of loss of hair—yet this is undoubtedly true, and no tonics or restorers will do a particle of good until the dyspepsia is cured. Complaints peculiar to the sex are another fertile cause, and general debility brought about by watching, overwork, bad air, or irregular habits, is likewise often to blame. These general disorders must be remedied by a timely course of medicine, the blood must be purified, the secretions regulated, the skin brought into healthy action, and then we can with great confidence go to work on the head itself.

If the scalp is very carefully examined with a lens, it will usually be found in such cases not so healthy as it looks at first sight. There will appear some dryness, or scurfiness, or irritability; the roots of the hairs will be found reddened and spongy; the surface will feel hot; some odor other than natural will be perceived. It may be that while all seems sound to the naked eye, the microscope will at once reveal a wide-spread local disease.

Supposing the scurfiness to be slight, and no erup