Among the former, are infusion of ordinary garden sage (Salvia Officinalis, j.; Aq. Bull. Oj.)may be mentioned. The author has employed this to advantage in a number of cases of incipient alopecia, the first effect being to check the falling out of the hair, and long-continued use is sometimes followed by a renewed growth of stronger hair. The applications should be made at least every other night and continued for several weeks. If at the end of a mouth or six weeks no benefit appears to accrue, it is hardly worth while to continue it longer. A stronger application may then be used, as a tincture of sage, of rosemary (Rosmarinus Offcinalis), or of nux vomica mixed with castor-oil.

A still stronger, and perhaps the most frequently employed scalp stimulant, is the tincture of cantharides more or leas diluted with alcohol, or oil, or added to any of the ordinary pomades that the patient fancies. The proportion of the tincture should not at first exceed one part twenty of excipient, to be increased later if thought desirable.

Another stimulant specially recommended by Wilson is ammonia. He prescribes "a lotion composed of strong liquor ammonia, almond oil, and chloroform, of each one part, diluted with five parts of spirits of wine or spirits of rosemary, and made pleasant as to fragrancy by the addition of a drachm of the essential oil of lemons. The instructions for the use of this lotion, are: that it should be sponged upon the skin of the head after thorough friction with the hair-brush" (80, 164).

When the scalp is preternaturally dry, oily applications and excipi-ents for more active agents should be employed. Among the oils, petroleum enjoys a certain reputation, not altogether unmerited, as a hair stimulant. The crude oil may be employed, or, preferably, some one of its more refined products. The oleates of mercury and of strychnia may also prove of service under the same conditions. When, however, the scalp is unusually oily from excess of sebaceous secretion, the author usually directs that it shall be occasionally washed with a fluid-extract of soap bark (Quillaya Saponaria), to which a little water has been added. This forms a lather which both cleanses the scalp and acts as a stimulant.

In the treatment of alopecia, which is usually tedious and often without result, a change in the character of the application should occasion-ally be made. After a prolonged use of any given lotion, the scalp seems to become habituated to it, and progress stops, to go on again under the use of quite a different preparation.

The treatment of alopecia dependent on pityriasis or the alopecia fur-furacea of Hebra, is thus described in the work of this author.

In the first place, the accumulation of scales on the scalp are softened by means of oil, and removed by washing. A sufficient quantity of pure olive oil is carefully rubbed into the scalp, where covered with scales, by means of a small piece of sponge, or a piece of flannel, and the head is then wrapped up in a hood of flannel. This plan is most conveniently carried out at night. If the scales are very thick and dry, the oil must be rubbed in energetically every two or three hours. After this proced-ure has been carried out for twelve or twenty -four hours, the scales become so brittle that they may be broken up and removed with the finger.

This is the time for washing the head. For this purpose any of the better kinds of soap may be made use of. A solution of soap in spirits answers best of all, because both the soap and the alcohol dissolve the fat, and the latter also slightly stimulates the sebaceous glands, and therefore acts as a direct method of cure as well as a merely preparatory one. The Spiritus Saponatus Kalinus is the most effective. A sufficient quantity of the alcoholic solution of soap is sprinkled on a piece of flannel, or on a coarse-meshed sponge, and the scalp is then washed with it. After the scales and crust have been everywhere thoroughly removed from the scalp, the hairs are rinsed with cold or lukewarm water until it flows away quite free from admixture with soap. The inunction with oil only requires to be repeated during the first few days, as long as the sebaceous crusts are reproduced in excessive quantity and density. The process of washing, however, must be persevered in day by day, most conveniently at night, in men as well as in women. After the completion of the washing, the hair must be combed, and by this means some scales still remaining may be removed. The hair is then left quite unrestrained, that is, in women it is not plaited nor arranged in any way. It must remain uncovered, in order that it may dry thoroughly.

For the first few days the patients lose a very large quantity of hair, much to their dismay, during the washing and combing, so that they appear much more bald than they did before commencing the treatment. It is necessary to call the patient's attention, beforehand, to this unavoidable but very easily explained circumstance. There are many hairs, for instance, whose roots are already atrophied, and whose root-sheaths are already loosed, which adhere but slightly to their follicles. These, which are quite ready to fall out, are pulled out by the washing, and they are accompanied by many hairs which, though set free from their follicles, are retained by masses of sebum. The loss, therefore, only affects hairs which would otherwise, though not at the precise time, have been shed.

At a later stage, instead of the wash of the alcoholic solution of soap, may be substituted one containing brandy, or an alcoholic one containing tannin, veratria, or some other stimulating ingredient. Still later, fatty excipients are usually required.

Besides the drugs already mentioned, attention is directed to Adian-tum, 13; Lappa. 73; Ruta muriaria, 101; and Verbena, 113.