Medicine: Violence to the Scalp

Technical progress and fashion fads can lead to baldness in both men and women, reports London's erudite medical journal, the Lancet. One sure cause is a certain type of nylon hairbrush, and it took keen detective work by London Dermatologist Agnes Savill to find this out. A man of 27 went to her with a triangular bald spot, getting persistently bigger, on the side of his head. Dr. Savill found many short hairs of unequal length, some with frayed ends. Her conventional treatments—oil and massage—did no good, but when the patient switched to an old-fashioned boar-bristle brush, his hair grew out...

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