The time and money women waste on useless hormone creams and other beauty aids can probably be matched by what men spend on cures for baldness. I am sorry to have to tell you that there is no cure for ordinary baldness. The miraculous ones you read or hear about have nothing to do with this type of baldness. For example, in alopecia areata, the hair suddenly falls out, often in patches. This disease is not fully understood, but it appears to be connected with tension or other emotional factors. In many cases, the hair will grow back again after the illness has subsided. If the sufferer has been using a ‘hair restorer,’ he may sign testimonials crediting it with his new growth of hair.
Hair normally grows in spurts, a period of growth alternating with a rest period. On the head, the rate is usually about three quarters of an inch a month, although this varies in different people. If not cut, hair grows to the length of about 25 inches on an average. Hairs fall out—again the rate is different in different people—and new ones grow from the same follicles.
Baldness can be caused by general ill-health, infections of the scalp, nervous tension, and temporarily by a disease such as typhoid fever. Last, but by no means least, it can be due to the combination of sex, age, and inheritance that results in what doctors call male-pattern alopecia, which simply means the ordinary baldness of men.
There are some things you can do to stave off ordinary baldness. You can avoid lotions, tonics, too much wetting, and continued dandruff. You can protect the general health of your body and give your hair proper attention and care. However, you cannot cure baldness after it has arrived. If it is particularly distressing to you because of your business or profession—or for personal reasons—I strongly advise you not to waste money on ‘hair restorers’ but to spend it on a toupee which, if carefully made to match your hair and skillfully fitted, cannot be distinguished from your own hair.
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