Fashion in deformity : [a discourse] / by W.H. Flower.

  • Flower, William Henry, 1831-1899.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fashion in deformity : [a discourse] / by W.H. Flower. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    which is based upon the part of the body affected by them, and I will begin with the more superficial and comparatively trivial—the treat- ment of the hair and other appendages of the skin. Here we are at once introduced to the domain of fashion in her most potent sway. The facility with which hair lends itself to various methods of treatment has been a temptation too great to resist in all known conditions of civilization. Innumerable variations of custom exist in different parts of the world, and marked changes in at least all more or less civilized communities have characterized successive epochs of history. Not only the length and method of arrangement, but even the colour of the hair, is changed in obedience to caprices of fashion. In many of the islands of the Western Pacific, the naturally jet-black hair of the natives is converted into a tawny brown by the application of lime, obtained by burning the coral found so abundantly on their shores; and not many years since similar means were employed for producing the same result among the ladies of Western Europe—a fact which considerably diminishes the value of an idea entertained by many ethnologists, that community of custom is evidence of community of origin or of race. Notwithstanding the painful and laborious nature of the process, when conducted with no better implements than flint knives, or pieces of splintered bone or shell, the custom of keeping the head closely shaved prevails extensively among savage nations. This, doubtless, tends to cleanliness, and perhaps comfort, in hot countries; but the fact that it is in many tribes practised only by the women and children, shows that these considerations are not those primarily engaged in its perpetuation. In some cases, as among the Fijians, while the heads of the women are commonly cropped or closely shaved, the men cultivate, at great expense of time and attention, a luxuriant and elaborately arranged mass of hair, exactly reversing the conditions met with in the most highly civilized nations. In some regions of Africa it is considered necessary to female beauty carefully to eradicate the eyebrows, special pincers for the purpose forming part of the appliances of the toilette; while the various methods of shaving and cutting the beard among men of all nations are too well known to require more than a passing notice. The treatment of finger nails, both as to colour and form, has also been subject to fashion; but the practical inconveniences attending the inordinate length to which these are permitted to grow in some parts of the east of Asia, appears to have restricted the custom to a few localities. If time allowed, the exceedingly wide-spread custom of tattooing the skin might be here considered, as a result of the same propensity as that which produces the other more serious deformations, now to be spoken of; but it will be as well to pass at once to these. The nose, the lips, and the ears have in almost all races offered great temptations to be used as foundations for the display of orna- ment, some process of boring, cutting, or alteration of form being