y and possessed a full growth of hair. Thurman
reports a case of a man of fifty-eight, who was almost devoid of hair
all his life and possessed only four teeth. His skin was very delicate
and there was absence of sensible perspiration and tears. The skin was
peculiar in thinness, softness, and absence of pigmentation. The hair
on the crown of the head and back was very fine, short, and soft, and
not more in quantity than that of an infant of three months. There was
a similar peculiarity in his cousin-german. Williams mentions the case
of a young lady of fifteen with scarcely any hair on the eyebrows or
head and no eyelashes. She was edentulous and had never sensibly
perspired. She improved under tonic treatment.

Rayer quotes the case of Beauvais, who was a patient in the Hopital de
la Charite in 1827. The skin of this man's cranium was apparently
completely naked, although in examining it narrowly it was found to be
beset with a quantity of very white and silky hair, similar to the down
that covers the scalp of infants; here and there on the temples there
were a few black specks, occasioned by the stumps of several hairs
which the patient had shaved off. The eyebrows were merely indicated by
a few fine and very short hairs; the free edges of the eyelids were
without cilia, but the bulb of each of these was indicated by a small,
whitish point. The beard was so thin and weak that Beauvais clipped it
off only every three weeks. A few straggling hairs were observed on the
breast and pubic region, as in young people on the approach of puberty.
There was scarcely any under the axillae. It was rather more abundant
on the inner parts of the legs. The voice was like that of a full-grown
and well-constituted man. Beauvais was of an amorous disposition and
had had syphilis twice. His mother and both sisters had good heads of
hair, but his father presented the same defects as Beauvais.

Instances are on record of women devoid of hair about the genital
region. Riolan says that he examined the body of a female libertine who
was totally hairless from the umbilical region down.

Congenital alopecia is seen in animals. There is a species of dog, a
native of China but now bred in Mexico and in the United States, which
is distinguished for its congenital alopecia. The same fact has been
observed occasionally in horses, cattle, and dogs. Heusner has seen a
pigeon destitute of feathers, and which engendered a female which in
her turn tr