Bartholinus anatomy made from the precepts of his father, and from the observations of all modern anatomists, together with his own ... / published by Nich. Culpeper and Abdiah Cole.

Chap. I. Of the Hairs.

IN the Head there is the greatest plenty of Hair, therefore the Nature of the Hair may conuenient∣ly be delivered in this place: though considered as an Excrement, it does not belong to this place.

Hairs are found well-near in all Crea∣tures* 1.1 that engender their young ones with∣in their bodies, as Aristotle assures us: in∣stead whereof Fishes have scales, Birds feathers, and some Beasts as the Hedg-hog, have long sharp prickles.

Now the Hairs are indeed Bodies, but not parts of the body, unless in a very large signification, as when we say some parts serve only to adorn the body.

The immediate material Cause of which the hairs are made, is certain fuliginous and excrementitious Va∣pors, thick and earthy, yet somwhat glewish and clam∣my.

Its therefore false, which some affirm,* 1.2 that the Hairs and Nails are nourished and generated of good and laudable nutriment. For they grow even in per∣sons consumed and pined away, and being cut, they grow again in all ages of a mans life; and the oftner they are cut, the sooner they grow a∣gain. Yea in dead men, as on thieves upon the Gib∣bet, &c. they grow. See Paraeus at the end of his Book, who had an embalmed body in his house twen∣ty four years together, the Hairs and Nails whereof grew again as often as they cut them. They are there∣fore bred of sooty Steams and Vapors, of the third Concoction, or of the fleshy substance it self, by what∣soever heat resolved into vapors.

The remote Matter, is nothing* 1.3 seminal out of which the hair sprouts as a flower, nor any fat substance en∣clining

to the Nature of the Seed or Blood, but a su∣perfluous moisture; especially that which is contain∣ed in the Kernels. And therefore where there are Kernels, in those places there* 1.4 are commonly Hairs, as at the Ears, in the Arm-pits, in the Groins, &c. And if somtimes there are Kernels without Hairs, this want of hair springs from a too great quantity of humors.

For the Matter in which, or the Place where hairs are bred, ought not to be too moist, nor too dry; as we see nothing grow in a wet fuliginous Soyle, nor in ground over dry and parched.

And therefore the Skin, because it is a temperate part, as the place of Genera∣tion* 1.5 of hairs; but if it be too moist, or too dry, as in some persons it is, the hair does not shoot forth: and therefore cru∣sted Animals, as Crabs, Lobsters, Oy∣sters, &c. have no hairs.

The Skin therefore on which hairs must be bred, ought to be moderately dry, least the hair should fall from its root; but it must not be immoderately, but laxe and rare, least otherwise the hair should not make its way through. And therefore hairs may grow all o∣ver the skin, because it is every where porous, and e∣very Pore hath the root of an hair fastned therein, ex∣cepting the palmes of the hands and the soles of the feet, which parts because of their continual motion and wearing, have no hairs, and because they were to be of an exquisite sense. And for this cause there grows no hair upon a Scar, because it hath no Pores.

Hairs also do somtimes grow on the inner Mem∣branes of the Body, in the Heart as was said before, in the Womb, in the Urinary passages, Witness Hypocra∣tes, Galen, Schenkius. Hair was found in the stomach by ••••eer, and lately in Norway bairs were voided by vo∣mit from the Stomach, whether bred there, or taken in. At the Danish Hellespont red hairs were lately taken out of the musculous flesh of an Ox leg.

The Efficient Cause of hair, is not the Soul, nor any vegetative hair-making faculty, but moderate heat, drying up those fuliginous vapors, and thrusting them forth into the pores of the Skin.

These three things already explained, are the chief Requisites for the Generati∣on* 1.6 of Hair, viz. The Matter, the Place convenient, and Heat.

From whence by the Rule of Con∣traries, the Cause of Baldness may be* 1.7 gathered, viz.

• 1. When Matter is wanting.
• 2. When the Skin is Originally too dry, and after∣wards grows drier, and is not moistened by any neigh∣bouring part. Now the fore-part of the Head is here to be understood, which is commonly the only bald place; for no man, according to Aristotle, becomes bald on the hinder-part of his Head. For either Fat or other moisture in the hinder-part and the Temples keep them from baldness; fat in the fore-part, the Skin becomes dry and hard like a shell, and therefore is bald.
• 3. By reason of too much or too little heat. For weak heat does not sufficiently dry the matter, as in cold and moist persons, and such as are in years. And therefore the humor growing over hot by carnal Co∣pulation, is the cause of baldness, and for this cause Boys and Eunuchs do not become bald.
• 4. Also four Husbandmen near Bruxells became bald by poyson, as Franciscus de Paz the King of Spains Physitian observed, and wrote thereof ••o Nicholas Fon∣tanus; And Hamelmannus in his Annals tells of an Horse of the Count of Oldenburg, which by poyson was made bald hither, because this poyson had some specifical contrariety to the Hairs, or because the Spirits being extinguished, and the vigor of the Body quelled, the roots of the hairs could not be retained in the Skin. Such a poyson is the fat of a certain Whale in the Is∣land of Feroe, newly taken out, by which Copper-ves∣sels are also broken.

The Hairs are commonly divided into such as are bred in the womb, and such as grow afterwards.

Those bred in the Womb are three∣fold, those of the Head, of the Eye-lids,* 1.8 and the Eye-brows.

The Hairs which grow afterwards, are such as spring up when a man comes to a just age; that is, in a boy when he begins to breed Sperm, and in a Maid when her Courses break forth, for then the Skin grows open.

Also these are threefold: for 1. Hairs breed on the Share, seldom in the Womb and the Heart. 2. In the Arm-pits, also in the Nostrils and Ears. 3. On the Chins of men but not of women; for in women their Courses spend the matter of hair which should make a beard, and therefore somtimes, when their Courses are poxt, women have hairs growing on their Chins. It was a rare case for a young woman of thirty years of age, one of the Arch-dutches of Austria's Women, to have ever since she was a Girl, before her courses brake forth, a long beard with mustachios like a man. And I saw such a like Girl not long since in the Low-coun∣tries, who was also hairy all her Body over. Lately Helena Marswin in Fionia, had a Girl with a long beard of a reddish yellow colour.

The End or Use of Hairs,* 1.9

• I. Is to cover the Parts.
• II. To adorn them. And this is chiefly seen in the Hairs of the Head and Face. For
  • 1. The Hairs of the Head do shield* 1.10 the Brain from external injuries of cold and heat, &c. So in Aethiopia by a pe∣culiar thrumming of their hairs, they are defended from the heat. And as a man hath the grea∣test Brain of all Creatures, so hath he thereon most plenty of hairs.
  • 2. They moderately heat, as otherwise in the Head there is no Fat to keep it warm: but rather a bony substance, and that far distant from the Heart. Now the hairs according to the advice of the Physitian, are to be let grow, or to be cut off in this or that person, but they must not be shaven off, because thereby De∣fluxions are caused. So also the beard does cherish and moderately warm the Chin. In persons that are recovering out of sickness, the hair must not be cut off, for fear of a relapse, touching which Question see Sito∣nus.
  • 3. They adorn: for bald persons and* 1.11 thin-hair'd are deformed. So the Beard also adorns a man, and makes him vene∣table, especially if the hairs be spred all about. But in women there was no need of so venerable an ap∣pearance.
• III. To purge the Humors and Spirits, and the whole Body of superfluous sooty steams. And there∣fore frequent cutting the hair, quickens the ••ight, and Celsus in a long Defluxion of Rheum, bids us cut the hair to the skin. C. Aurelianus sayes that in the Phren∣zie, when the hair is cut off, the parts transpire, being freed from a great burthen. Hence a reason may be drawn why Helmont. ••asting an Asses milk, could tell

• whether she had been curried and combed that mor∣ning or not.
• IV. To afford signs whereby to know the Tempera∣ment, Manners and hidden Diseases of every person.

The Form of Hairs is not the Soul, as many would have it, because in persons* 1.12 that consume, and such as are dead, the hairs grow; and those who conceive with Plempius, that there is a Soul in persons dead twenty four years, I leave the Readers to make an estimate of their Wis∣dom. Nor do they retain a vegetative life in dead persons, for so the whole man should not die, nor is there any thing in a dead Carkass, that should rather preserve this life, then the sensitive or rational, not to say that these ignoble Parts by the long-lasting of their lives, should excel all other parts. Plants indeed spring living from the lifeless Earth, but out of a living Seed, which I deny to be in the Hairs, and therefore they stick not in the Body like Plants, nor are bred there∣out. Nor must we say with Plotinus, that certain re∣liques of life remain after death, as warmed rooms re∣main hot, when the fire is out; for such Reliques of life could not remain so many years. The form ther∣fore of the hairs may be described by their accidents, which are these following.

I. Magnitude: Now the Head-hairs are longest, because the Brain is greater* 1.13 then the rest of the Kernels: also they are thickest, because the Skin of the Head is most thick, howbeit it is laxe and open, and contains sufficient moisture.

According therefore as the Skin is thick or thin, rare or compact, and the humor plentiful or scanty, and the heat weak or strong, the hairs become thick or thin, hard or soft, plentiful or scanty, &c. He had store of hair on his Head, who could suffer himself to be shot in the head with a bullet, and had no hurt, whom Bus∣bequius saw in his Voyage to Constantinople. Yet they grow not infinitely, because the Exhalations are not so plentiful, nor does the expulsive Faculty work infi∣nitely.

2. Their Figure: The hairs are straight and flat, in such as abound with moisture, but cur∣led* 1.14 in such as are dry. Therefore curled hair is harder then that which lies flat. Hence all Black∣mores are curle-pated, because of their dry Tempera∣ment. But the Scythians and Thracians have long flat hair, because they are moist, according to Aristotle. A∣gain the hairs are straight because of the straightness of the passages through which they break forth; and crisp because of the crookedness of the said passages. The augmenting Glass informs us that the hairs are qua∣drangular; though others will have them to be round because of the roundness of the Pores.

Also they are porous or hollow within, as the Dis∣ease Plica in Poland does shew, and the hairs of an Elk. Again because they may be split, they have Pores, ac∣cording to Aristotles maxime.

III. Their Colour: which in Brutes follows the colour of the Skin; and in* 1.15 men is exceeding variable, according to the Country, ambient Air predominant Humor, Age, &c.

For those that dwell in hot and dry Countries, have their hair not only dry, crisp and brittle, but also black, as the Aegypians, Arabians, Indians; also the Spani∣ards, Italians, and part of the French have their hair for the most part black. They who dwell in cold and moist Countries, have their hairs not only soft and ••t••aight, but for the most part yellow or white, as the Inhabitants of Denmark, England, Norway, Swedland, Scythia, &c.

Again the predominant Humor makes the Colour of the hairs: as in flegmatick persons, the hairs are for the most part white, and so of the rest.

Also the Variety of Heat makes variety of Colours: for immoderate heat makes black hairs: for a vapo∣rous Excrement is raised by the heat, and is changed into an exact sooty stream. But temperate heat makes the hairs yellow; more temperate makes them red; a weak heat makes them white. But both these causes of Colours do easily concur in the hair, as when flegm abounds, weakness of heat is joyned therewith, and when Blood abounds, heat is moderate, &c.

Also a change in the Colour is made in respect of Age, as also of other accidents. For grown persons have their hair not only thicker, harder, stronger and more plentiful, but at length also grey and whiteish.

But no Hairs on the Body of Man are Naturally green, or blew, though there are both green and leek-colour'd Choler in Mans Body; the cause whereof is not the thickness of the hair, uncapable of light, as Car∣dan imagined, because the hair is capable of being yel∣low, its thickness nothing hindring; but, as Scaliger rightly philosophizes, seeinge, ••ry colour is not agree∣able to every Plant, no more is it to the hairs. Yet I have seen green hair'd men at Hafnia, and those as work Metals have their hair commonly green. Mar∣cellus Donatus relates of Antonius Maria Catabenus, grey hair'd through Age, how that much Choler mixt with blood abounding in his Body, not only his Skin be∣came of a Verdigreese or yellow-green colour, but his grey hairs were also died of the same hue.

The Ancients conceived that grey hairs* 1.16 did proceed from driness, as the Leaves of Trees when they are dried, look white.

But Aristotle confutes them. For those who go with their heads covered, do sooner grow grey, and yet are not so dried, as those that expose their heads bare to the air. Again some are grey as soon as they are born or quickly after, which cannot proceed from Dry∣ness.

Now they grow soonest grey that go* 1.17 alwaies with their Heads covered, be∣cause the heat cannot be fanned, but is overwhelmed and strangled, which be∣ing extinguished, an external heat is in∣troduced; so that putrefaction is the cause of grey hairs, which sprung from scarsity of innate heat, which cannot so digest the hu∣mors as in youth. And the outmost and smallest end of the hair is whitest, where there is least heat.

Now why a white Humor should arise from putrefaction, the Cause is,* 1.18 according to Aristotle, because a great part is turned into Air, which being well mixed with an earthy and warry Substance makes whiteness. Hence al∣so it is apparent, why men are soonest grey about their Temples, because there great and fleshy Muscles are placed under the Skin, which through moisture do ea∣sily putrifie. Add hereunto, that the Bones of the Temples are very thin, and therefore extraneous heat can easily pass through them.

Notes

• * 1.1

  What crea∣tures have Hair.
• * 1.2

  Whether Hair & Nails grow of good nutri∣ment.
• * 1.3

  The remote mat∣ter of Hair.
• * 1.4

  Where Hair b••eede.
• * 1.5

  Why crusted Animals have no hairs.
• * 1.6

  Requisites to the Genera∣tion of hair.
• * 1.7

  Cause of baldness.
• * 1.8

  Hairs bred in the womb.
• * 1.9

  Use of Hair.
• * 1.10

  Why a man hath plenty of hair?
• * 1.11

  The Beard adorns.
• * 1.12

  Their Form.
• * 1.13

  Magnitude.
• * 1.14

  Figure.
• * 1.15

  The cause of the colour of the hair.
• * 1.16

  The cause of grey hairs.
• * 1.17

  Why they are soonest grey-hair'd that go with their Heads co∣ver'd?
• * 1.18

  Why Men are soonest grey a∣bout their temples?