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A Critique of the Book Prophetess of Health - Contents
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    Artificial Hair Pieces

    On page 148 Prophetess of Health introduces two and a half paragraphs from an Ellen G. White Health Reformer article in which she writes of artificial hair pieces which fashion imposed on women, and she described certain baneful effects. The book declares, “Mrs. White’s fears in this instance were based upon her understanding of the so-called science of phrenology, widely current among health reformers.” (p. 148) What the book terms her “flirtation with phrenology” (p. 149) and her “proclivity to phrenology” are also mentioned. We think that these last named terms do not accurately describe the situation.CBPH 69.7

    On the point of the ill effects of hair pieces however, taking into account all the facts known to us today, we do not have what could be considered a satisfactory explanation. It is a fact that the wigs of a century ago were quite different from those currently worn, and this should be noted. A striking description of a typical 1867 wig appeared in the Health Reformer:CBPH 69.8

    It seems to us it would be hard to find a man in the city, or country either, who would say one word in favor of the monstrous bunches of curled hair, cotton, seagrass, wool, Spanish moss and other multitudinous abominations, of which the aforesaid bunches are composed.... They give to the wearer such a wide-awake look that I’ve often wondered if they, like Miss “Bly,” celebrated in song, “shut their eyes when they go to sleep.” To the best of our knowledge, it would be an utter impossibility to shut one’s eyes unless they took the chignon off.—The Health Reformer, July, 1867, 2:7.CBPH 69.9

    The lady who wrote the above lines described the effects which wearing such a hair piece had upon her: “Our chignon was not imported, but had been shorn from the head of a dear friend; but that did not prevent it from generating an unnatural degree of heat in the back part of the head, and producing a distracting headache just as long as it was worn” (Ibid.).CBPH 69.10

    Another Health Reformer article appearing in the January 1871 issue, quoting the Marshall Statesman and the Springfield (Mass.) Republican described the perils of wearing “jute switches”—wigs made from dark, fibrous bark. It seems that these decorations were often infested with “jute bugs,” small insects which burrowed under the scalp of the wearer. One woman’s experience was described:CBPH 69.11

    Her head became raw, and the hair began to fall out. Her entire scalp was perforated with the bur rowing parasites, who betrayed their residence by little bunches, which, when punctured, would let them forth. It might be possible thus to slaughter them in detail, but for the fact that they breed under the skin, and their reproduction goes on endlessly. The lady has consulted several physicians, but without help; and has used every application which seemed to promise relief, but entirely in vain. She is represented as nearly crazy from the terrible suffering, and from the prospect of the horrible death which physicians do not seem able to avert.—HR5:136, Jan. 1871.CBPH 69.12

    On the question of wigs as worn at the time, it could be that the several points enumerated by Ellen White in a single reference in a Health Reformer article constitute one of the perplexing matters concerning which we must acknowledge that we do not have an answer, and therefore, for our part, we choose to hold suspended judgment. In the opening pages we made reference to a few such problems. Could this be one of the “hooks” on which doubts may be hung? (The Great Controversy, 527). There must be some somewhere. Is this one of the perplexing instances where looking at the weight of evidence, we find our confidence unimpaired.CBPH 69.13

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