Matskási István (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 81. (Budapest 1989)
Pap, I. ; Józsa, L.: A rare hair developmental abnormality (pili multigemini) and lousiness on hair remains from Medieval grave
The components of gemini hairs could be separated only by strong mechanical impact. It was not possible to separate them in water or in tripsine solution. There were no microscopic alterations indicating endocrine or metabolic diseases. We did not find any traces indicating cosmetic activities (dyeing, screwing up, curling) on this hair sample. DISCUSSION The morphological and chemical analysis of hair made possible to draw conclusion not only on the diseases of follicles and of hair itself, but on the organism as a whole (KLEVAY 1978). During hair analysis of archeological material usually only the colour and parasitic diseases of hair were registered (RUFFER 1914, REGÖLY-MÉREI 1962, WELLS 1967). As the hair pigment of Egyptian mummies was oxidized in the process of conservation they usually have red or decolourised hair. No conservation material was used on the ancient Peruvian royal mummies therefore even their custom of hair-dyeing could be established on these mummies (REGÖLY-MÉREI 1962). Hair-dyeing was very wide-spread in ancient times (MÜLLER 1960, WOLFF 1952), not only the upper class people coloured their hair. It seems that it went out of fashion in the early Middle Ages and it returned only in the 9-10th centuries. At the turning of millenium long, curled, blond hair was the beauty ideal of Western Europe and that is why hairdressing and colouring became more frequent again. We know almost nothing about the hair-styling and cosmetics of the Conquering and Arpad period Hungarians but they presumably could take the custom of hair-styling and cosmetics from West European settlers (Franks, Bavarians, Italians, etc.). Beside these the one and only „hair-styling" act of nomadic peoples, the „head-searching" must have survived. The examination of our material excluded the possibility of hair-dyeing, of curling with iron and of screwing up. There was absolutely no microscopic and ultrastructural alteration indicating any kind of preparation on this hair. The possibility of inherited, inborn diseases (pili torti, Menkes-disease, etc.) concerning epithelium, including hair, could be excluded according to the analysis of the hair of this young woman. There was also no sign of any metabolic or endocrine diseases (hypothyreosis, hyperthyreosis , Simmond-disease, etc.) but number of other lesions could be found. First of all pili multigemini and trichorrhexis nodosa deserve mention. Some authors classified these as cosmetic anomalies (PONGRÁCZ 1962) but others as hair diseases (RAJKA & SZODORAY 1960). Nodulous fragmentation (trichorrhexis nodosa) could be found only on a small number of singles hair therefore we evaluated it as an early beginning disease that could be linked to the hair lousiness of the young girl. The presence of the few extremely thick hairs and their different microstructure compared to the normal one indicates a rare developmental abnormality the so-called pili multigemini. Pili multigemini is the abnormality when more than one single of hair is growing from one papilla but each single of hair has its own capsule and the matted hair complex has a joint capsule, too. This clinical pattern was first described by FLEMMING (1883) on a tripal hair found in a beard. Later GIOVANNINI (1893) reported pili multigemini in a child's hair. The name pili multigemini was introduced by PINKUS (1951) who also proposed the nomination FLEMMING-GIOVANNINI anomaly. The essence of the clinical pattern is that more than one, 2-15 hairs start from one hair
