Whatever one may think of the men with gray temples, whether or not one prefers them to the youthful heroes with the monochromatic jet black or light blond surfer hairstyle, is not at issue here. But one thing is certain: the gray, the mottled, the white hair is considered, even if not always rightly, as a sign of mature age. The sayings “to become white overnight” and “to become old overnight” mean the same thing.
Gray hair and gray temples
While men are more inclined to deliberately brag a little about the mature masculinity of their gray hair, women are usually anxious to hide their first gray temples. While men are more inclined to deliberately brag a little about the mature masculinity of their gray hair – with masculine matter-of-factness, of course, they don’t admit it, just as they don’t want to admit to thinking anything of cosmetics – women are usually anxiously trying to hide their first gray temples, even if they weren’t willing to have their hair dyed until then. Only younger women act the other way around now and then and have a single strand dyed white as an exception to the rule, which, by the way, is hereditary in some families. But what exception would not be granted to a younger lady when she is made beautiful.
Why do you get gray hair?
Apparently, then, not only red or blond, but also gray is a hair color that has it in it, so it is worthwhile to trace its mystery. Unlike skin color, the palette of human hair is rich in tones, colors and nuances. Its quality depends on the pigment content of the hair cortex. The pigment is formed by special cells: its quantity and method of distribution result in the different hue values. Air content and surface structure of the hair shaft impart additional variants of shine, smoothness and shimmer. Only albinos, which we recognize by their white skin, white hair, pink iris and deep red pupil, are completely unable to form pigment due to hereditary conditions. This predisposition, however, is rare, but often, also congenital, different shades of color occur in the same person in different areas of hair. In general, hair growth proceeds in such a way that originally lighter hair initially darkens towards the end of the growth period and only becomes gray from case to case much later. The darkening is most familiar to us with the light blond, but happens just as much with the brunette and even with the red.
Gray hair and temples not a sign of age
Although graying is widely considered a sign of age, its occurrence does not allow us to draw any binding conclusion about the actual age of the person. Personal differences aside, there are families in which every thirty-year-old is already gray and others in which there is hardly ever a gray-haired person. Such observations illuminate the relativity of the relationship between age and graying and have led some researchers to reject graying as an obligatory sign of old age altogether. The graying of the hair proceeds gradually, no matter at what age. Nevertheless, reports about sudden graying of hair appear again and again in temporal connection with catastrophes, fright situations and accidents. Thereby it is the unexpected mental load which is supposed to have caused the spontaneous whitening or graying. With such narrations one may not overlook first of all that the term “suddenly”, with which we designate in the normal linguistic usage a momentary event expiring in seconds, is applied here mostly quite liberally, referred to the experience of the narrator, which took place with closer view in the course of a whole night, one or several days. This gives the event a substantially different face in the eyes of the physician, who must think critically in terms of natural science if he does not want to fall prey to charlatanism.
Causes of gray hair and gray temples
Although graying is largely considered a sign of age, its occurrence does not allow any binding conclusion about the actual age of life. This is first of all due to the fact that so far no such event, as far as the time factor “sudden” is concerned, withstands criticism – natural scientific medicine today could plausibly find both a sudden whitening and, in analogy to the mental causation of other diseases, a sudden whitening from mental cause.It remains to explain what causes the many misconceptions that keep feeding the legends or the reality, still unproven in any case, of turning gray or white overnight. First of all, there are general diseases with and without fever, which not only lead to hair loss within a day, but, fully in the case of the elderly, whose hair was already gray in itself, can be the first to affect the still existing pigmented hair, so that only the already white remnant remains. The same can happen, if it occurs at a higher age, with the well-known circular hair loss, so that then the impression of a sudden whitening due to mental causes becomes stronger. Thus, in many cases, the fright is not the cause but the consequence of the hair disease, and the greater the number of hairs affected by it. Incidentally, it is not seldom forgotten that despite the restrictive term “circular”, it can affect the whole head or the whole body. Finally, in the case of circular hair loss, the assumption of sudden graying from a mental cause is occasionally supported by the fact that it first sets in, as sometimes happens, after migraine attacks or circumscribed neuralgias. Relatively new and important in the present context is the already mentioned observation that pigmented hair apparently falls out more easily and earlier than pigment-poor or pigmentless-white hair. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that after circular hair loss, even in younger people, the hair often grows back white and sometimes remains white. The young woman with the white strand has not always had it dyed or inherited it through generations. Occasionally it is a consequence of the described disease, about the cause of which one can generally not say much more exactly, than that it is still unknown. Now that so much has been said about graying, silver hair and white strands, in the end there is no hiding the fact that we still do not know exactly how the graying of the individual hair occurs. Either from a certain point in time only pigmentless hair grows back, or the hair gradually turns gray from the tip, or the hair shaft loses its pigment in visibly more and more places.
Other reasons for gray hair and gray temples.
Each theory has its supporters, but conclusive evidence is still lacking for all three. Moreover, graying is not only a matter of the pigment present, but also of the shape and quantity of air bubbles trapped in the hair cortex. The more numerous these are, the more silvery the individual hair shimmers, and the more gray strands are present, the more gray and mottled the whole head appears. The light reflex caused by the bubbles can be so significant that even heavily pigmented hair appears silver-gray. This fact that science, despite all zeal and curiosity, has not yet been able to fully fathom the graying of the individual hair, may console us for the fact that even for the sudden graying the valid example is still missing. The medicine has understandably first still some more urgent concerns, particularly since the graying of the health quite generally does no harm. Not only between heaven and earth, but also between the crown and the sole, there are things that are still closed to our scholastic wisdom, Shakespeare would add here. Thus the “men with the gray temples” still remain a little shrouded in mystery.
