The Northern Star, And Constitutionalist

TREATMENT of THE HAIR. In cases where the hair is falling, or in any way to decline, the ends should be cut every ten or fifteen days. The hair-brush, if faithfully used, produces a healthy action in the skin, and when resorted to in conjunction with an oil, renders it soft and elastic. The brush prepares the hair for the more speedy and effectual operation of the oil by removing the dandruff. Females should by no means neglect to have the ends of the hair cut often. This may appear of trifling consequence, but it will be found of great service'; for cutting hair has a tendency to draw the nutritive matter to the skin, and hence its growth promoted. When this is neglected, the ends will often split, loose their lustre, become dead, and to a very great extent, the growth at the roots will be prevented.

Though we are strong advocates for the use of the hair-brush, and that too to the exclusion almost entirely of the comb, yet let it be understood, that we are no advocate for the indiscriminate use of the brush, so notorious in barber's shops, and in families, where one instrument seems to be common to the whole community. By the constant vice of having but one brush or one comb-or in other words, by not possessing the exclusive ownership, and thereby interdicting it to other-many diseases are propagated from one person to another. It has been proved that cutaneous affections, and even severe constitutional maladies, have been communicated by an indiscriminate use of one razor, it is no less certain that ringworm, scurvy of the head, tinea capitis, ulcerations of the bulbs and indeed a multitude of minor affections, may thus be propagated. It may therefore be received as a maxim, that one comb, one brush, one razor, one tooth brush, should never be held in partnership even among the most cleanly people. An indiscriminate use of beds, napkins, or domestic instruments, tends in the regular to the generation of disease, and certainly to the propagation of diseases already existing.

There is one other evil which has gained too general a footing in this country, so perfectly absurd or ridiculous, that we cannot pass it over in silence, without at least advert ing to its universal adoption. We allude to the practice of wearing false hair-the shorn locks of the dead-the last surviving remains of the beggar, the poor and despised female, whose tresses were the only valuable portion of her shattered frame and those never admired, till pinned to the temple of some more fortunate individual of her sex. How strange it is, in an age and a country too where good taste, like good morals, is always conspicuous, that ladies-yes, those who actually give tone and character to the times should be the exclusive patrons of this abominable custom of wearing hair that grew on-they know not on whose head.

If ladies are dissatisfied with the organization of their features, and the accompanying ornament of hair, which the Creator fitted to their countenance, as the most appropriate in color and quality, why not improve its quality by the means which chemistry has placed within their reach, instead of abandoning their half developed hair for the productions of the shop ! The living hair may be made rich and luxuriant, by half the labor bestowed on dead tresses ; and if we are accused of selfishness in recommending anything to produce a result so feasible and gratifying, we can assuredly say, that we have been fearless in the cause of common sense.

The patient's hair, in sickness, ought by no means to be neglected. It is too often the case, that the hair is entirely disregarded in sickness, especially in fevers.-- It cannot be expected that it will continue to grow and flourish, without any assistance, when the body is laboring under pain and disease. Baldness, so often the result of indisposition, may be prevented by attending to it.

Sensitive HAIR. The hair sometimes becomes painfully sensitive when cut.-- The slightest touch is felt instantly, and cutting produces the most exquisite pain.

This very singular affection arises from a morbid condition of the scalp, in which the blood-vessels and nerves shoot forth into the tubes of the hair.