The meals should also be taken at regular intervals.  At least four hours should be left between them for the act of digestion and the proper rest of the stomach.

It is, on the contrary, when the voice of nature has been stifled, when judgment and experience have been set aside, that mischief follows; when the stomach is teased and fretted with overloading, and the food gulped down without being masticated, gastric and intestinal derangement supervenes, which is one of the most prolific sources of the early decay and fall of the hair.

The nervous system, which is one of the most important portions of the human structure, and which controls circulation, secretion, and nutrition, often by being impaired, plays a prominent part in the production of baldness.  Thus, it has been demonstrated by modern investigation that the nerves of nutrition, by their defective action, are often the cause of thinning and loss of hair.  The nutritive action of a part is known to suddenly fail, the hair-forming apparatus ceases to act, the skin changes from a peculiar healthy hue to a white and shining appearance, and often loses at the same time its sensibility; the hairs drop out until very few remain, or the part becomes entirely bald.  It is the overtaxing of the physical powers, excessive brain work, the exacting demands made by parents and teachers upon children’s mental faculties, the loss of sleep, incessant cares, anxiety, grief, excitement, the sudden depression and exaltation of spirits, irregular and hastily bolted meals, the lack of rest and recreation, the abuse of tobacco, spirits, tea, coffee, and drugs of all forms, that are fruitful sources of this defective action of the nerves of nutrition, and consequent general thinning and loss of hair.

The hair, particularly of the head, should also receive marked local attention.  In reference to the use of coverings for it, I know of no better rules than those which I laid down in my chapter on clothing in “Household Practice of Medicine” (vol. i., p. 218, William Wood & Co., New York), in which I state that the head is the only part of the body so protected by nature as to need no artificial covering.

The stiff hats so extensively worn by men produce more or less injury.  Premature baldness most frequently first attacks that part of the head where pressure is made by the hat.  It is, indeed, a pity that custom has so rigidly decreed that men and women must not appear out of doors with heads uncovered.  It would be far better for the hair if to be bare-headed were the rule, and to wear a hat the exception.

Since we can not change our social regulations in this respect, we should endeavor to render them as harmless as possible.

The forms of hats that are least injurious are:  for Winter, soft hats of light weight, having an open structure, or pierced with numerous holes; for Summer, light straws, also of open structure.