Horns are generally solitary but cases of multiple formation are known Lewin and Heller record a syphilitic case with eight cutaneous horns on the palms and soles. A female patient of Manzuroff had as many as 185 horns.
Pancoast reports the case of a man whose nose, cheeks, forehead, and lips were covered with horny growths, which had apparently undergone epitheliomatous degeneration. The patient was a sea-captain of seventy-eight, and had been exposed to the winds all his life. He had suffered three attacks of erysipelas from prolonged exposure. When he consulted Pancoast the horns had nearly all fallen off and were brought to the physician for inspection; and the photograph was taken after the patient had tied the horns in situ on his face.
Anomalies of the Hair.--Congenital alopecia is quite rare, and it is seldom that we see instances of individuals who have been totally destitute of hair from birth. Danz knew of two ***** sons of a Jewish family who never had hair or teeth. Sedgwick quotes the case of a man of fifty-eight who ever since birth was totally devoid of hair and in whom sensible perspiration and tears were absent. A cousin on his mother's side, born a year before him, had precisely the same peculiarity. Buffon says that the Turks and some other people practised depilatory customs by the aid of ointments and pomades, principally about the genitals. Atkinson exhibited in Philadelphia a man of forty who never had any distinct growth of hair since birth, was edentulous, and destitute of the sense of smell and almost of that of taste. He had no apparent perspiration, and when working actively he was obliged to wet his clothes in order to moderate the heat of his body. He could sleep in wet clothes in a damp cellar without catching cold. There was some hair in the axillae and on the pubes, but only the slightest down on the scalp, and even that was absent on the skin. His maternal grandmother and uncle were similarly affected; he was the youngest of 21 children, had never been sick, and though not able to chew food in the ordinary manner, he had never suffered from dyspepsia in any form. He was married and had eight children. Of these, two girls lacked a number of teeth, but had the ordinary quantity of hair. Hill speaks of an aboriginal man in Queensland who was entirely devoid of hair on the head, face, and every part of the body. He had a sister, since dead, who was similarly hairless. Hill mentions the accounts given of another black tribe, about 500 miles west of Brisbane, that contained hairless members. This is very strange, as the Australian aboriginals are a very hairy race of people.
Hutchinson mentions a boy of three and a half in whom there was congenital absence of hair and an atrophic condition of the skin and appendages. His mother was bald from the age of six, after alopecia areata. Schede reports two cases of congenitally bald children of a peasant woman (a boy of thirteen and a girl of six months). They had both been born quite bald, and had remained so.
In addition there were neither eyebrows nor eyelashes and nowhere a trace of lanugo. The children were otherwise healthy and well formed. The parents and brothers were healthy and possessed a full growth of hair. Thurman reports a case of a man of fifty-eight, who was almost devoid of hair all his life and possessed only four teeth. His skin was very delicate and there was absence of sensible perspiration and tears. The skin was peculiar in thinness, softness, and absence of pigmentation. The hair on the crown of the head and back was very fine, short, and soft, and not more in quantity than that of an infant of three months. There was a similar peculiarity in his cousin-german.
Williams mentions the case of a young lady of fifteen with scarcely any hair on the eyebrows or head and no eyelashes. She was edentulous and had never sensibly perspired. She improved under tonic treatment.
Rayer quotes the case of Beauvais, who was a patient in the Hopital de la Charite in 1827. The skin of this man's cranium was apparently completely naked, although in examining it narrowly it was found to be beset with a quantity of very white and silky hair, similar to the down that covers the scalp of infants; here and there on the temples there were a few black specks, occasioned by the stumps of several hairs which the patient had shaved off. The eyebrows were merely indicated by a few fine and very short hairs; the free edges of the eyelids were without cilia, but the bulb of each of these was indicated by a small, whitish point. The beard was so thin and weak that Beauvais clipped it off only every three weeks. A few straggling hairs were observed on the breast and pubic region, as in young people on the approach of puberty. There was scarcely any under the axillae. It was rather more abundant on the inner parts of the legs. The voice was like that of a full-grown and well-constituted man. Beauvais was of an amorous disposition and had had syphilis twice. His mother and both sisters had good heads of hair, but his father presented the same defects as Beauvais.
Instances are on record of women devoid of hair about the genital region. Riolan says that he examined the body of a female libertine who was totally hairless from the umbilical region down.
Congenital alopecia is seen in animals. There is a species of dog, a native of China but now bred in Mexico and in the United States, which is distinguished for its congenital alopecia. The same fact has been observed occasionally in horses, cattle, and dogs. Heusner has seen a pigeon destitute of feathers, and which engendered a female which in her turn transmitted the same characteristic to two of her young.