Page 56 - Cosmetology

Drugs used in cancer chemotherapy frequently cause a temporary loss of hair, noticeable
on the head and eyebrows, because they kill all rapidly dividing cells, not just the
cancerous ones. Other diseases and traumas can cause temporary or permanent loss of
hair, either generally or in patches.

The hair shafts may also store certain poisons for years, even decades, after death. In the

case of Col. Lafayette Baker, who died July 3, 1868, use of an atomic absorption
spectrophotometer showed the man was killed by white arsenic. The prime suspect was
Wally Pollack, Baker's brother-in-law. According to Dr. Ray A. Neff, Pollack had laced
Baker's beer with it over a period of months, and a century or so later minute traces of

arsenic showed up in the dead man's hair. Mrs. Baker's diary seems to confirm that it was
indeed arsenic, as she writes of how she found some vials of it inside her brother's
suitcoat one day.

Width

According to The Physics Factbook, the diameter of human hair ranges from 17 to 181
µm.

Cultural attitudes

Head hair