Pilocarpine, locally and internally, has been recommended, but this agent is ex pensive: a fact militating against its use in ointments.
The following ointment is highly rec ommended :— R Pilocarpine, Quinine, of each, 4 parts. Precipitated sulphur, 10 parts. Balsam of Peru, 20 parts. Beef-marrow, 100 parts.—M.
Sabourand (Concours AIM., June 19, '97).
Pilocarpine acts not only in increasing perspiration, but produces also marked and persistent vasodilatation, which in creases the nutrition of the hair-bulb. lie employs the nitrate in solution of per cent., mixed with 1 to 1000 bichlo ride of mercury, by intradermic injec tion. llefnre injecting the plaque is ribbed with 90-per-cent. alcohol. The syringe is filled three-quarters full by drawing in first cubic centimetre of the mercurial solution, then Y., cubic centimetre of the pilocarpine solution, and finally V., cubic centimetre of the mercurial solution. This makes the proper proportion. The injections are made just beneath the skin in as hori zontal a manner as possible, 1 centimetre apart, and repeated every four or five days. A patch the size of a dollar requires about 12 injections. After four or five sittings the hair begins to grow. In sixty eases treated over a period of three vears there was no instance of failure. Scheirer (La Me'd. Mod., May 19, 1900).
Resorcin has given satisfactory results in the early stages.
Electricity is sometimes of value. The negative pole of a battery of from four to ten cells should be applied to the bald spot sufficiently long to produce a red ness of the skin. It should be used only in connection with other remedies. (Hayes.) An ointment of chrysarohin, from 3 to 10 per cent. in strength, can be recom mended as an effective application. Tit prescribing this the physician must not forget to mention the fact that it will stain the bed-linen, and caution the patient not to get any ointment in his eyes lest a severe conjunctivitis result.
George Henry Fox (Amer. Jour. of Obst., Jan., '96).
Treatment by the are light, the bald spots and their shaved borders being subjected to daily treatment of an hour and a quarter's duration. The number of sittings varied in accordance with the size and number of the spots. The re sults were good, the hair beginning to grow in a short time. In one case two or three bald spots were treated with the light; these became completely cov ered with hair, while the untreated spots remained hairless until treated later in the same manner. Jersild (Annales de Dermat. et de Syph., Jan.. '99).
Case of a successful cure in four months by x-rays. The patient, a male aged 15, suffered from several patches for five months. The patches varied in size from a pea to an egg. As a control experiment one patch was not treated by the rays, but an area cover ing the other patches, together with the healthy scalp, was exposed for a total period of two hours, made up of frequent short exposures. A week after exposure the hair fell off all the ex posed parts. In three weeks the alo pecia areas became red ; the normal areas were bald, but not red. In an other month there was a growth of new hair on the alopecia spots, while the rest of the scalp remained bald. The condition was thus the reverse of that at the beginning of treatment. _After four months' treatment the whole area exposed was covered with hair; the MI treated patch, however, was still bald. This was afterward cured. The author does not consider the effect due to bac tericidal action, as he finds that expo sure of bacteria to the strongest rays at a focal fifteen centimetres for an hour only hinders their growth for a time. The same exposure to the scalp would cause severe ulceration. Holzknecht (Wiener Min. Rund., Oct. 9, 1901).