body covering against the
elements, but even in its present reduced capacity, it is a good and
true indicator of certain deficiencies in the blood and in the functions
of the body.

Its principal disease manifests itself in loss, through the shrinkage of
the little globular terminal, by means of which it is rooted in the
skin.

The hair has become an accepted criterion of youth and beauty, and its
change in color or its loss are consequently regarded as the unfailing
heralds of approaching age. The vast majority of people accept this
fact with reluctance, and thus the hair, more than any other feature has
become a centre of the nefarious activities of impostors.

Its loss can be prevented to a great extent, and its quality kept in
healthy condition, if it is treated in the proper hygienic-dietetic
manner.

_Therapy._

_Diet_: Diet in case of hair disease calls for a combination of food
containing lime, silica and gelatine. It must be selected from a list of
foods that possess these special nourishing qualities.

_Dech-Manna-Compositions_ =Capillogen=, =Plasmogen=, Gelatinogen,
Eubiogen.

_Physical_: No special directions required.

IX. DEGENERATION OF THE SKIN TISSUE.

According to the conception of the human body as a unit, it is not
difficult to understand that the skin, while not a separate organ, forms
the outermost layer of the body-tissues and is nourished _from within_.

By means of more than 2,500,000 small openings in the skin, called the
pores, communication is established between the external and the
internal parts of the body. This produces a permanent exchange of
matter, and thus the skin is, in fact, a second system of respiration of
the greatest importance to the health of the entire body.

Naturally it is subject to traumatic accidents through its exposed
position. Traumatic affections cannot now be discussed; except to give a
brief idea of the constitutional diseases of the skin which, like all
others, originate in deficient blood. Often they are only secondary, and
indications of various, more complicated, diseases. In a few cases they
affect the skin alone, but are nevertheless constitutional, especially
in such cases as could not exist at all, were the disposition not
established constitutionally.

There is hardly another department of medicine where the "quack" reaps
so great a harvest as in the treatment of skin diseases. Thus the
suppression of symptoms becomes the rule; the rem