Volume 2

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/600 (page 87)
    the number of hairs growing from the scalp. According to Sir Erasmus Wilson the average number is 120,000. But this is greatly influenced by the colour of the hair. Thus another observer has shown that a square inch of scalp will hold 728 flaxen hairs, 678 chestnut hairs, and only 588 black hairs.^ It follows from this that our blonde beauties have a distinct advantage over our brunettes in so far as the number and fine- ness of their hairs is concerned. In fact, a lady with a good endowment of flaxen locks, combs out and disentangles each morning she performs her toilet somewhere between 70 and 90 miles of hair. This is a doubtful advantage, however, and one which I am sure she would gladly dispense with, when I tell her, that there is reason to believe that she is at a slight discount in the matrimonial market. Statistics would seem to show that brunettes are more successful in obtain- ing husbands in the proportion of about three to two.f Poets have a proverbial preference for fair hair; no poem is complete without a flaxen-haired maid, but prosaic mortals in search of a wife seem, upon the whole, to prefer the brown and the black. According to Dr Beddoe, the result of this conjugal selection appears to be that in some parts of England fair hair is slowly disappearing, whilst dark hair is becoming more prevalent. * The results obtained by counting the hairs over the entire extent of scalp in four heads of different colours are very similar to the above, viz.— Eed, . . . 88,740 Black, . . . 102,960 Brown, . . . 109,440 Blonde, . . . 140,409 t Table copied from Dr Beddoe's article On the supposed prevalence of dark hair in England.—(^Ti^Arpp. Rev., vol. i.) Colour of Hair. Social Condition. Red. Fair. Brown. Dark-Brown. Black. Married, Single, Doubtful, 67 30 3 55-5 37 7'5 60-5 30-5 9 69-5 22 8-5 79 18 3 Totals, . 100 100 100 100 100