Seite - 1018 - in The Complete Aristotle

under the influence of sexual passion. For no boy ever gets bald, no woman, and no castrated man. In fact, if a man be castrated before reaching puberty, the later growths of hair never come at all; and, if the operation take place subsequently, the aftergrowths, and these only, shed off; or, rather, two of the growths shed off, but not that on the pubes. Women do not grow hairs on the chin; except that a scanty beard grows on some women after the monthly courses have stopped; and similar phenomenon is observed at times in priestesses in Caria, but these cases are looked upon as portentous with regard to coming events. The other after- growths are found in women, but more scanty and sparse. Men and women are at times born constitutionally and congenitally incapable of the after- growths; and individuals that are destitute even of the growth upon the pubes are constitutionally impotent. Hair as a rule grows more or less in length as the wearer grows in age; chiefly the hair on the head, then that in the beard, and fine hair grows longest of all. With some people as they grow old the eyebrows grow thicker, to such an extent that they have to be cut off; and this growth is owing to the fact that the eyebrows are situated at a conjuncture of bones, and these bones, as age comes on, draw apart and exude a gradual increase of moisture or rheum. The eyelashes do not grow in size, but they shed when the wearer comes first under the influence of sexual feelings, and shed all the quicker as this influence is the more powerful; and these are the last hairs to grow grey. Hairs if plucked out before maturity grow again; but they do not grow again if plucked out afterwards. Every hair is supplied with a mucous moisture at its root, and immediately after being plucked out it can lift light articles if it touch them with this mucus. Animals that admit of diversity of colour in the hair admit of a similar diversity to start with in the skin and in the cuticle of the tongue. In some cases among men the upper lip and the chin is thickly covered with hair, and in other cases these parts are smooth and the cheeks are hairy; and, by the way, smooth-chinned men are less inclined than bearded men to baldness. The hair is inclined to grow in certain diseases, especially in consumption, and in old age, and after death; and under these circumstances the hair hardens concomitantly with its growth, and the same duplicate phenomenon is observable in respect of the nails. In the case of men of strong sexual passions the congenital hairs shed the sooner, while the hairs of the after-growths are the quicker to come. When men are afflicted with varicose veins they are less inclined to take on 1018