True frontal alopecia in 17th-century paintings.

Paintings often show women with a clearance of the frontal hairline. We previously remarked how this was a form of pseudoalopecia that was voluntarily caused by women who shaved the frontal part of their hair for fashionable and esthetic reasons. In this paper, we emphasize in a second set of paintings showing a true alopecia that was caused by traction of the hair due to a tight hairstyle and was culturally favored in the 17th century.

Burnett's "Cocaine" for dandruff.

Joseph Burnett manufactured the diethyl ether used for William T.G. Morton's public demonstration of inhaled surgical anesthesia on October 16, 1846 (Ether Day). A later Burnett product was a hairdressing oil claimed to prevent baldness and dandruff. It contained cocoa-nut oil and was called Cocoaine. In 1902 and 1903, it was sometimes advertised as Burnett's Cocaine (rather than Cocoaine), possibly to emulate the economic success of coca-based beverages such as Vin Mariani and Coca-Cola. Coca leaves are now decocainized before use in preparation of Coca-Cola, and the recovered cocaine is used for scientific and dwindling medical purposes.

Doctors and baldness: a five thousand year old challenge.

The history of trichology follows a thread that continually intersects with that of the history of medicine in general. Even Hippocrates believed that the approach to baldness should be of a medical nature. This confrontation between doctors and hair loss, which has lasted for five thousand years, begins with the invocations of the head physicians in the Egyptian era and ends with the recent institution of postgraduate Master's degrees at Faculties of Medicine and Surgery. The biggest names in medicine concerned themselves with trichology beginning with Hippocrates, who dealt with the topic in his most famous work: the Aphorisms. Even the most celebrated doctors of the Roman era, such as Galen and Pliny the Elder, did not disdain considering hair loss, leaving important scientific contributions before passing on the baton to their distinguished colleagues of the Byzantine Empire. The narrative then flows through the most prestigious institutions of the Middle Ages, such as the Salerno School of Medicine and the Siena Accademia del Fisiocritici where, at the end of the 1600s, the distinguished anatomical describer Marcello Malpighi also taught trichology, and left his contribution to "Hair Science" with a fine description of the hair follicle in the pages of his Opera Posthuma. At the turn of the late Middle Ages and the early modern era, barbers formed the primordial nucleus of surgery and at the same time became the ones to concern themselves with hair loss. In the 1800s, several doctors published the first texts dealing with the anatomy and physiology of the hair and taking into account the principal forms of alopecia, but at the therapeutic level did not yet propose anything scientifically valid. Until a few decades ago trichology still lent itself to various commercial speculations. It was not until the twentieth century that the pathogenetic mechanisms of baldness were clarified in a scientific manner. With this knowledge, the pharmaceutical industry has been able, then, to develop the necessary drugs, and doctors have become willing and able to reappropriate treatments to counteract conditions that lead to hair loss.

Fifty years of the asebia mouse: origins, insights and contemporary developments.

First described as an alopecic spontaneous mutant mouse line lacking sebaceous glands in a publication in Science in 1965 by Allen H. Gates and Marvin Karasek, asebia mice soon became a popular tool for rodent sebaceous gland research. In addition to the study of sebaceous lipids, the original asebia mice and subsequent allelic mutations were widely employed to examine the influence of the sebaceous gland on hair growth, epidermal proliferation, dermal inflammation and skin carcinogenesis, among other aspects. With the identification of Scd1 gene mutations as the genetic basis of the asebia phenotype and with the advent of more refined methods for manipulating the mouse genome, asebia mice progressively lost importance. However, they contributed to, or even provided the initial spark for, several current research topics. These include the role of the sebaceous gland in hair shaft-sheath interaction and its significance for cicatricial alopecia, and the antimicrobial activity of sebum. Furthermore, mice with skin-specific deletion of SCD1, which have increased energy expenditure and are protected from high fat diet-induced obesity, provided novel insights into the crosstalk between the skin and peripheral tissues in maintaining energy homeostasis. In briefly reviewing its story, this commentary pays tribute to asebia mice and to the original publication in its golden anniversary year.

Joseph Haydn's encephalopathy: new aspects.

With increasing age, Joseph Haydn complained of progressive forgetfulness preventing him from composing for about the last 8 years of his life. He spent his days more and more inactive and immobilized, suffering from a disabling gait disturbance. Still, most biographers consider diffuse atherosclerosis and congestive heart failure to be reasons for Haydn's medical condition and physical decline during the last years of his life. A more sophisticated and detailed inspection of documents and sources, however, leads to the diagnosis of subcortical vascular encephalopathy (SVE), caused by progressive cerebral small vessel disease. Important features of the disease are mood changes, urinary symptoms, and in particular a characteristic gait disturbance, while dementia is only mild and occurs later in the course. Haydn was severely disabled by the symptoms of SVE for several years and often reported difficulties in the completion of his last oratorio "Die Jahreszeiten" (The Seasons). Subsequently, the disease prevented him from composing another large oratorio, "Das jüngste Gericht" (The last judgement), which had been already drafted. Finally, the progress of SVE stopped his long career as a composer and conductor at the age of 73 years.

Goya and tinea favosa

A case of a tinea favosa involving the scalp of a child represented in the painting "Boys climbing a tree" (Muchachos trepando a un árbol), by Francisco Goya y Lucientes, with pictorial representation of favic scutula and consequent alopecia.

Goya and tinea favosa.

A case of a tinea favosa involving the scalp of a child represented in the painting "Boys climbing a tree" (Muchachos trepando a un árbol), by Francisco Goya y Lucientes, with pictorial representation of favic scutula and consequent alopecia.