Theories About Baldness

A question that often arises and is dom answered twice in the same way is as to why the hair falls out on the top of the head and not at the back and on the sides. The old fashioned theory is that baldness occurs within the linea marked by a man 's hat, and as nobody has ever offered conclusive proof to the contrary that exp!auation may be the correct one. The case was stated the other day to two very intelligent barbers. One of them thought that the reason why baldness occurred at the top of the head was that the brain carne closest to the surface there, and this being an age in which many brains are kept going ac high tensión the abnormal amount of blood thus carried to the cranium produced a kind of fever in the upper scalp Fevers, as is well known, often resuit in the falling out of the hair. The seco:id barber gave variety to the discussion by enlarging upon thenotioa that he had formeel from the observation and reflection of many years. "You will notice. " said he, "that the first hair a baby has comes in on the top of the head and falls out before the child is many weeks old. The hair that comes to stay grows thicker and stronger %a the sides and at the back, and I have an idea that the growth on the top of the head is always the weakest from infancy on to old age. " "But howdo you account f or the f act that women do not grow bald as men do?" queried a skeptieal listener. "Account for it? I don't have to account f or it, ' ' replied the ready witted second barber. "It isn't so. Why, I used to vork in an establishment where they had nine chairs in the men's department and 11 in the women's, and I want to teil you that I learned some things there that the average man and the average barber, too, for that matter, doesn't know. If you could appreciate as I do the number of women who have false hair so artistically arranged that nobody can teil it from their own natural tresses, you vonldn't ask why men grow bald and the other ses doesn't." Hairdressers have their pet theories on this subject as well as barbers, andsome of them are very plausible. But if you should ask a doctor who was not ashamed to confess his ignorance the chances are that he would teil vou he