The hair of the whole body was likely to be attacked with this
disease. Kalschmidt of Jena possessed the pubes of a woman dead
of plica, the hair of which was of such length that it must have
easily gone around the body. There was formerly a superstition
that it was dangerous to cut the hair until the discharge
diminished. Lafontaine, Schlegel, and Hartman all assure us that
the section of the affected masses before this time has been
known to be followed by amaurosis, convulsions, apoplexy,
epilepsy, and even death. Alarmed or taught by such occurrences,
the common people often went about all their lives with the plica
gradually dropping off. Formerly there was much theorizing and
discussion regarding the etiology and pathology of plica, but
since this mysterious affection has been proved to be nothing
more than the product of neglect, and the matting due to the
inflammatory exudation, excited by innumerable pediculi,
agglutinating the hair together, the term is now scarcely
mentioned in dermatologic works. Crocker speaks of a rare form
which he entitles neuropathic plica, and cites two cases, one
reported by Le Page whose specimen is in the Royal College of
Surgeons Museum; and the other was in a Hindoo described by
Pestonji.
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