found to
possess some value as signs of the impulse may themselves either be
healthy or morbid. This is notably the case as regards an abnormal growth
of hair on the body, more especially when it appears on regions where
normally there is little or no hair. Such hypertrichosis is frequently
degenerative in character, though still often associated with the sexual
system. When, however, it is thus a degenerative character of sexual
nature, having its origin in some abnormal foetal condition or later
atrophy of the ovaries, it is no necessary indication of any aptitude for
detumescence.

Idiots, more especially it would seem idiot girls, tend to show a
highly developed hairy system. Thus Voisin, when investigating
150 idiot and imbecile girls, found the hair long and thick and
tending to occupy a large surface; one girl had hair on the
areolae of the mamma. (J. Voisin, "Conformation des organes
genitaux chez les Idiots," _Annales d'Hygiene Publique_, June,
1894.) It should be said that in idiot boys puberty is late, and
the sexual organs as well as the sexual instinct frequently
undeveloped, while in idiot girls there is no delay in puberty,
and the sexual organs and instinct are frequently fully and even
abnormally developed.

Hegar has described an interesting case showing an association,
of foetal origin, between sexual anomaly and abnormal hairness.
In this case a girl of 16 had a uterus duplex, an infantile
pelvis, very slight menstruation and undeveloped breasts. She was
very hairy on the face, the anterior aspects of the chest and
abdomen, the sexual regions, and the thighs, but not specially so
on the rest of the body. The hairs were of lanugo-like character,
but dark in color. (A. Hegar, _Beitraege zur Geburtshuelfe und
Gynaekologie_, vol. i, p. III, 1898.) Sometimes hiruties of the
face and abdomen begin to appear during pregnancy, apparently
from disease or degeneration of the ovaries. (A case is noted in
_British Medical Journal_, August 2 and 16, pp. 375 and 436,
1902.) Laycock many years ago referred to the popular belief that
women who have hair on the upper lip seldom bear children, and
regarded this opinion as "questionless founded on fact."
(Laycock, _Nervous Diseases of Women_, p. 22.) When this is so,
we may suppose that the abnormal hairy growth is associated with
degeneration of the