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Electrolysis, the only permanent hair removal method |
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Graying of the hair is a nearly universal phenomenon in the human race, one that has excited an immense amount of almost fruitless investigation for thousands of years. The scientific term for this natural change in the hair pigmentary system is canities (from the Latin word canus, meaning gray, white, hoary), a condition that people in most civilizations have been loathe to recognize as “normal.” The color gray, formed by a blending of white and black, suggests a dullness in mood or outlook and is perceived to be lacking in cheer and brightness. A shock of white hair is often associated with wisdom and experience, but at the same time it is recognized as a characteristic of maturity and “getting old” — a tradeoff that few 45-year-olds want to accept. A touch of “gray wisdom” might be tolerable, but nobody wants to be seen as “a hoary old codger.” The word hoary (specifically, “hair that is gray or white with age”) is also used to imply something very ancient or venerable, like “the hoary walls of the castle.” Too often, though, it refers to things that are stale or hackneyed, as in “hoary clichés,” “hoary half-truths,” or “hoary old jokes” like the ones that Uncle Willy used to tell at family get-togethers. In truth, nobody “gets gray hair.” The color of one’s hair is determined by the substance called melanin, and by the way the granules of this natural pigment are distributed within the hair. Blond and red hair contain varying amounts of the red-yellow pigment pheomelanin, while the much greater range of darker hair colors are under the control of the brown-black pigment eumelanin. When the manufacture of pigment granules dwindles, canities — the most obvious manifestation of the ageing process — kicks in. And it is a mosaic blending of white hairs and a few transitional gray hairs, mingled with the dark original-color hairs, that together present the middle-aged owner with a completely new spectrum of muted shades — including “distinguished-looking gray,” and “mousy.” What is referred to as gray hair is not gray at all, but rather an impression of grayness. “Senile grayness” as described above, is just one of several types of canities, perhaps the most exciting of which is “sudden hair blanching.” This popular belief — that psychological shock or trauma can cause rapid losses of hair pigment — has been a subject of great controversy within the medical fraternity for a very long time. Dr. C. H. Leonard, in his dissertation on Hair Diseases and their Treatment, published in 1881, said “Some strange freaks of nature are observed in the matter of this sudden decoloration of hair; for often in a single night, or in the space of a few hours or even moments, hair that was formerly of a dark color is changed to a silvery gray.” Thirty-five years later on, in 1960, the renowned hair authority, Irwin I. Lubowe, MD, wrote: “It has frequently been reported that under especially severe stress, of even brief duration, an individual’s hair turned white overnight.” While admitting that the occurrence of such things might be phenomenal, and that “there is no great wealth of reliable scientific descriptions of such incidents,” Dr. Lubowe pointed out that “as far back as the history of human belief extends, it has been a matter of common understanding that hair will whiten under unusual, prolonged nervous strain.” One of the few medically attested cases put forward as irrefutable evidence of sudden hair blanching comes from an 1858 report by Dr. Parry, a British army surgeon stationed in India at the time of the infamous Indian Mutiny. According to Dr. Parry, a Sepoy of the Bengal army — with the typically jet black hair of the Bengalee — who had been taken prisoner and was “under examination” by Her Majesty’s Forces, turned entirely gray within the space of half an hour: “Divested of his uniform, and stripped completely naked, he was surrounded by the soldiers, and then first apparently became alive to the danger of his position; he trembled violently, intense horror and despair were depicted on his countenance, and although he answered the questions put to him, he seemed almost stupefied with fear. While actually under observation, within the space of half an hour, his hair became gray on every portion of his head, it having been, when first seen by us, the glossy black of the Bengalee, aged about 54. The attention of the bystanders was first attracted by the sergeant, whose prisoner he was, exclaiming, ‘he is turning gray,’ and I, with several other prisoners, watched its progress. Gradually, but decidedly, the change went on, and a uniform grayish color was completed within the time named.” |
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