Anomalies of the Hair.--Congenital alopecia is quite rare, and it is
seldom that we see instances of individuals who have been totally
destitute of hair from birth. Danz knew of two adult sons of a Jewish
family who never had hair or teeth. Sedgwick quotes the case of a man
of fifty-eight who ever since birth was totally devoid of hair and in
whom sensible perspiration and tears were absent. A cousin on his
mother's side, born a year before him, had precisely the same
peculiarity. Buffon says that the Turks and some other people practised
depilatory customs by the aid of ointments and pomades, principally
about the genitals. Atkinson exhibited in Philadelphia a man of forty
who never had any distinct growth of hair since birth, was edentulous,
and destitute of the sense of smell and almost of that of taste. He had
no apparent perspiration, and when working actively he was obliged to
wet his clothes in order to moderate the heat of his body. He could
sleep in wet clothes in a damp cellar without catching cold. There was
some hair in the axillae and on the pubes, but only the slightest down
on the scalp, and even that was absent on the skin. His maternal
grandmother and uncle were similarly affected; he was the youngest of
21 children, had never been sick, and though not able to chew food in
the ordinary manner, he had never suffered from dyspepsia in any form.
He was married and had eight children. Of these, two girls lacked a
number of teeth, but had the ordinary quantity of hair. Hill speaks of
an aboriginal man in Queensland who was entirely devoid of hair on the
head, face, and every part of the body. He had a sister, since dead,
who was similarly hairless. Hill mentions the accounts given of another
black tribe, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, that contained hairless
members. This is very strange, as the Australian aboriginals are a very
hairy race of people.

Hutchinson mentions a boy of three and a half in whom there was
congenital absence of hair and an atrophic condition of the skin and
appendages. His mother was bald from the age of six, after alopecia
areata. Schede reports two cases of congenitally bald children of a
peasant woman (a boy of thirteen and a girl of six months). They had
both been born quite bald, and had remained so. In addition there were
neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and nowhere a trace of lanugo. The
children were otherwise healthy and well formed. The parents and
brothers were health