Cause of hair loss

Hair is born from smoky vapors, when the vapors condense in the pores, and grows above them, feeding on the substances they receive, especially if the moisture in the body is viscous, oily, and not watery or clayey; for the same reason, leaves do not fall from oil trees. Blackness, gray hair and other colors of hair have already been discussed, and discussions about them related to cosmetics concern concern for their substance in order to grow them or cause them to fall out, concern for their quantity in order to increase or decrease it, concern for their size, to make them coarser, thinner or longer, worries about their shape to make them smoother or curly, and worries about their color to make them black, brown or white. In this article we will talk about these items.

Hair disappears or decreases in quantity either from a nutrient-related cause or from a cause that nests where it grows. The cause associated with a nutrient is its scarcity or absence. The scarcity of a nutritious substance occurs either from the fact that something floods or changes it, or from the poverty of the basic substance, for example, from the paucity of smoky vapors in a child or a woman due to the abundance of moist vapors, due to which they do not grow a beard. And the poverty of the basic substance occurs either from a random phenomenon, or from the fact that nature has finished it off. Impoverishment from a random phenomenon occurs, for example,

in those who are recovering, who have been dried up by long-term illnesses, or consumptive, or dry, and there is no matter left for them to nourish the hair, the hair therefore falls and does not grow, as happens with a plant thirsty for watering if it is not watered.

The same thing happens with castrated people, who, due to castration, are similar to women in terms of moisture and coldness of nature. The substance from which the seed is formed accumulates in them and cools; its coldness reaches the noble organs and cools them, and therefore the moisture in eunuchs is not absorbed to the point of dryness, and what is absorbed, due to its scarcity and liquid composition, does not remain in the pores and goes out. Something similar happens to those who constantly wear heavy turbans on their heads.

As for poverty depending on nature, this happens, for example, with baldness, baldness occurs due to a lack of matter in the bald area, and this occurs either from its poverty, or due to the brain moving away from contact with the skull, so that the brain feeds the skull less than with full contact.

When hair does not grow for a reason inherent in the place where it grows, then this can be explained in three ways: either the matter of the hair does not penetrate there, or it penetrates but does not linger, or it deteriorates there and acquires a quality that is not conducive to hair formed from it. Matter does not penetrate there only due to clogged pores, and the pores become clogged only due to the high density of the substance due to dryness, and this is one of the reasons that contributes to baldness. Baldness quickly occurs in a person with a hot nature, since the juices in it quickly dry out; therefore, those predisposed to baldness have a lot of hair on their body and chest due to the heat of their nature - the scanty hair in such people is difficult to pluck out - and also due to their hardening under the influence of former ulcers, as sometimes occurs with baldness.

If the substance is not retained in the pores, then this is due to the great looseness of the tissues and the expansion of the pores. This condition is one of the reasons that contributes to the fact that the beard does not grow and the remaining hair in such people is thin and easily falls out. At the end of life, when the nature becomes drier and the pores narrow due to the high humidity of the nature due to its insignificant warmth, this acts in the sense that baldness does not occur; this is the case among women and eunuchs.

If the substance deteriorates at the site of hair growth, then this occurs either due to immobile bad juice, as in snake and fox diseases, or from malignant corroding ulcers, as happens in some types of baldness.

Baldness is difficult to treat, although it can be prevented before it starts or delayed. When Hippocrates says that if bald people have dilated veins in their legs, their hair begins to grow, he means someone whose hair has fallen out from fox fever and similar diseases.

The hair of the eyebrows and eyelashes does not fall off quickly, since the place where they grow is dense, cartilaginous and retains them; therefore, baldness occurs late in Abyssinians and Zinjs, whose skin holds the hair tightly; the hard skin does not break through easily, and there is little hair on it, but it preserves hair that does not fall out or split. People with a lisp do not go bald because their brain is very moist, so they often have diarrhea due to discharge from the brain.