in medicine, a disease of the hair, almost peculiar to Poland and Lithuania; and hence denominated polonica. It consists of a preternatural bulk of the hair, which being firmly conglomerated and wrapped up in inextricable knots, and extended to a monstrous length, affords a very unfeely spectacle. When these are cut off, the blood is discharged from them, the head racked with pain, the sight impaired, and the patient’s life frequently endangered.

This disorder is supposed to arise from the forid and nasty manner of life to which these people are addicted, and from an hereditary fault conveyed from the parents, which consists in too great a bulk of the pores and bulbous hairs under the skin of the head; hence the thick and glutinous nutritious juice, produced by their coarse aliments and impure waters, is by heat forced into the cavities of the hairs, and fweating through their pores, produces this terrible disease.

A perfect method of curing this disorder is unknown; undoubtedly because, in those parts of Poland in which this disease is endemic, there have been few physicians who, from what is commonly known of the nature and cure of the plica polonica, have been able to lay down a rational and judicious plan for treating it. It is certain, that purging and venefaction are so far from being beneficial in this disorder, that they often prove hurtful, by throwing the peccant humours into violent commotions, and more effectually distributing them through the whole body. It is therefore most safe and expedient to solicit the peccant matter to the haire, to which it naturally tends: and this intention, Senertus says, is most effectually answered by lotions of bear’s-breech.