TRICHORRHEXIS NODOSA.
This interesting condition of the hair of the heard and whiskers, in which the shafts are marked by a series of partial breaks, causing at irregular i ntervals the appearance of white transverse bands like porcupine markings, was exhaustively investigated by the author many Years ago. The results were published in the Dublin Journal of Medicine in 1879, and show that after an examination of 3oo individuals taken at random the condition was invariably found to he present in some hairs in evert case. This de monstration of its universal presence, though in varying degrees of severity, was decidedly against the view of any specific microbic origin, and no specific parasite has since been discovered.
As the condition was always found in a great abundance of the hairs of those cleanly individuals who used soap and water freely, the author arrived at the conclusion that the condition could not be regarded as pathological in the ordinary sense. The outer fibre cells of the cortex of the shaft of a grow ing hair become hard like those of the nails, and these not yielding to the expansion of the inner living cells of the medulla are gradually separated from each other and produce the disintegration characteristic of the condition, the process being probably hastened lw the acute bending of the shaft in the employment of friction by the towel after the free use of soap. Simple torsion will not produce the condition,
which seldom or never is present in the hairs on the upper lip.
The application of antiseptics is irrational, and repeated shaving with the view of ultimately producing a final crop of perfectly formed hairs is futile. The recommendation that the individual or so-called " patient " should seek a change of climate should not be taken seriously. The hairs of the head were never found to be affected in the author's cases.
The only step necessary for the correction of the condition is to daily anoint the hair lightly with any vegetable or animal fat as Almond or Trotter Oil or mixed pomade, and to use only as little soap and towelling as is necessary for cleanliness.
Trichorrhexis nodosa is not to be confounded with the rare condition described by Walter Smith as Monilethrix, which is congenital and affects all the hairs of the body.