The Washington times., 1917-01-22
POPULAR MEDICINE
BY DR.. HIRSHBERG
Intelligent Observation of Rules
of Hygiene Will De-
crease Illness.
BY DIR. LEONARD X. HIRsHBERG.

BY DR. LEONARD X. HIRsHBERG.
Red hair is said to be not only q
sign Of bravery and an intelligent
sense Of humor, but is also recognized
as q powerful, dominant type Ok hu-
man scalp fur in itself, yet in the
law of heredity, IL its relative infre-
quency counts for anything, 1t liter
ally takes a back seat.
Is there, then. any real connection
between hair color and superior men
tai ability? Prof. Charles kassel, OF
Fort Worth, Tex, once tried to an
aswer this query In the affirmative,
He pointed out that the hair, the rem
nent of coarse fur which once covered
the body of the hJfman animal, in a
battle with the progress of civiliZa-
ton lost out and was driven from all
its strongholds to its last fortified re-
doubt, the head.
to Prof. Kassel, grew into a thing of
use and meaning mark of race, an
emblem of rank, a symbol of religion,
sign of a profession. and, chief of
| all, an adornment of such SURPRISING
beauty as to afford Cupid most po-
tent weapon in his merry warfare
against the sons of men.
| At fourteen, the Greeks and Roman
cut of the hair of their youths and
dedicated the tresses to the river
gods. Similarly. shipwrecked sailors.
to propitiate the gods, severed the
hair from their heads and cast 1t
into the angry seas.
Some Hair ClassiAeations.
Long flowing locks among the
Goths, Vandals, Gauls, and Persians
bespoke rank and noble birth. Even
today the mistaken contempt with
which some foreigners regard smooth
faced Americans comes from the
fealty of the former to the bearded.
In practically all ages, as well as
today, certain colors and kinds of
hair are generally associated with
definite types of men and women. Stiff
and wiry hair, for example, is DEEM
ed an evidence of a poor breed, OF low
birth.
Soft, clusterly, curly locks are, per-
| haps, sometimes enormously associ-
ated with innocence, gentleness, and
humanity. Even a poet is supposed
to wear cowlicks and ringlets to meet
this view.
Coarse hair is held to mean a
rough, brutal, unfeeling animality.
with few OF the higher sparks OF
the soul present. Dick Deadeye and
the Pirates OF Penzance must be made
up this way to carry reality to the
| spectators eyes.
Yet the science of ethnoIogy gives
more than a semblance of support
to these popular Impressions upon the
color and the structure OF the hair.
A red-headed man Is often set down
at once as whittier. pleasanter, more
frank and honest and drawer than a
dark-haired one. The nationality of
a man is more quickly decided by his
hair than by many other things.
Prof. Huxley once classified the hui
man race by tribes of dark, straight
or light Aair. Those of less intelli-
gence, he records, are of black and
straight types of hair. The Aus
tralian, the. Cape Town and Sahara
negroid races are placed among the
missing links. The MOngolisns, too,
are listed with those of less alert in
telligence.
Texture and Race.
Among the Ioftier human tribes
mentally are the fair haired and fair.
skinned whites. which Prof Huxley
called Xanthachroics or Sorrels. Next
in intelligence come those with hair
which ranges from straw color 10
chestnut.
One OF the points which links man
to the brute world Is the texture Of
the hair. 1t Is its cnarseness in some
, races which betrays this near re.
lationship.
THE crowp baEr NJ tho GORILLA ~
angoutang, chimpanzee, and gibhon
; are black, stiff and bristlelike. such
as the lowest living types, the native
bushman OF Autralia, have.
Prof. Quatrefages, In "'rhe Human
Species" emphasizes these observa-
tions in the statement that ESQ
lated cases in all races of individuals
with hair of more or less reddish
= color" indicates intellectual superior.
.ity.
+. Black haiI, however, despite its as
B ISOLATION with lower human races
| and apes. is known to symboIize
l talent, deep feeling. loyalty in love
2 and steadfastness Of purpose. when
| the lighter shades of red-auburn and
r carrot hues-cal forth protests
! against their frivolities, light-heart
T edness, frolicsoms effervescence, and
5 lack of caution.
D Havelock Ellis, the writerpyy
chologist, says that the proportion
r OF red-haired persons among Grim
= inals is considerably less than. dark
4 haired ones, and that "the beard is
s either scanty or absent in criminals
n while the hair on the head is usually
= abundant"
r CCopyr't 1911. by Newspaper Feature servicel