The Fearful Malady of which no one Dies.--_Esprit Odontalgique._--Gray
Pastilles.--Important to Smokers.--Mouth Perfumes.--Care of the
Breath.--Directions for Bathing.--Perfumes for the Bath.--Bazin’s
_Pâte_.--Quality of Soaps.--Bathing and Anointing the Feet.--Nicety
of Stockings.--Delicate Shoe Linings.--Feet of Pauline Bonaparte.
Among the recipes, more or less valuable, which come to light in old
collections, one for the toothache, by Boerhaave, is too useful to be
lost. Even beauties have the toothache sometimes, especially after
going home from the Academy of Music on a snowy night with a tulle
scarf folded about their heads, or after sitting with their backs to
the window in a half-warmed parlor during a ceremonious call. Use
before beauty, mademoiselles; and with no more excuse is proffered
the _Esprit Odontalgique_, which should be kept in the dressing-room,
ready for the slightest signs of that most terrible malady, from which
nobody dies.
Alcohol of thirty-three degrees, one ounce; camphor, four grains; opium
in powder, twenty grains; oil of cloves, eighty drops. The efficacy of
this lotion will be seen at a glance, and no other authority for its
use is needed than that of the learned and excellent physician who gave
it its name.
Very properly follow the gray pastilles for purifying the breath.
They do so, not by disguising it, but by reaching the root of the
difficulty, arresting decay in the teeth, and neutralizing acidity
of the stomach. The mixture is very simple: Chlorate of lime, seven
drachms; vanilla sugar, three drachms; gum-arabic, five drachms--to be
mixed with warm water to a stiff paste, rolled, and cut into lozenges.
Madame Celnart archly advises all good wives to let their spouses
know that these lozenges entirely remove the traces of tobacco in the
breath. As a good wife will hardly interfere with a favorite habit of
her husband who is fond of smoking, the least any gentleman can do is
to render his presence acceptable after the indulgence.
Another pastille, preferable on some accounts to the above, but owing
its value to the same principle, is made from chlorate of sodium,
twenty-four grains; powdered sugar, one ounce; gum-adraganth, twenty
grains; perfumer’s essential oil, two drachms. Powder the chlorate in
a glass mortar; put the powder in a cup, and pour in a little water;
let it settle, and pour off. Repeat the process three times with fresh
water, filtering what is poured off each time, and mix the gum and
sugar with it, adding the perfume last.
A gargle for the mouth which combines all the virtues of _Eau
Angelique_, and every other wash of heavenly name, is made of the
chlorate of lime in powder, three drachms; distilled water, two ounces.
Reduce the chlorate with a glass pestle in a glass mortar, add a
third of the water, stir, and pour off, as directed before, till all
is added. To this add two ounces of alcohol, in which is dissolved
four drops of the volatile oil of roses and four drops of perfumer’s
essential oil. Half a teaspoonful of the solution in a wine-glass of
water is to be used at a time as a tooth-wash and gargle for the mouth
and gums.
With the best intentions as to physical neatness, many persons are
unable to make the impression of their company wholly agreeable. They
may remember with advantage that rinsing the mouth with this fluid
six times a day is not too much pains in order to make themselves
acceptable to others. There is no surer passport to esteem than an
innocent, taintless person, which wins upon one before moral virtues
have time to make their way. If you think this truth is repeated too
often, study the impression made by the respectable people you meet for
the next month. The result will satisfy you that those who are as neat
as white cats are as one to fifteen of the careless, easily satisfied
sort.
Slight disorders of the system make themselves known by the sickly
odor of the perspiration, quite sensible to others, though the person
most interested is the last to become conscious of it. The least care,
even in cold weather, for those who would make their physical as sure
as their moral purity, is to bathe with hot water and soap twice a
week from head to foot. Carbolic toilet soap is the best for common
use, as it heals and removes all roughness and “breakings out” not
of the gravest sort. Ladies whose rough complexions were a continual
mortification have found them entirely cleared by the use of this soap.
The slight unpleasant odor of the acid present soon disappears after
washing, and it may be overcome by using a few spoonfuls of perfume in
the water.
An excellent preparation for bathing is Bacheville’s _Eau des
Odalisques_. The French recommend it highly for frictions, lotions, and
baths. It is made in quantity for free use after this recipe: Two pints
of alcohol, one of rose-water, half a drachm of Mexican cochineal,
four ounces of soluble cream of tartar, five drachms of liquid balsam
of Peru, five drachms of dry balsam of the same; vanilla, one drachm;
pellitory root, one and a half ounces; storax, one and a half ounces;
galanga, one ounce; root of galanga, one and a half ounces; dried
orange peel, two drachms; cinnamon, essence of mint, root of Bohemian
angelica, and dill seed, each one drachm. Infuse eight days, and
filter. For lotions, add one spoonful of this to six of water. It is
also useful for freshening the mouth, adding twenty-four drops of it to
four teaspoonfuls of tepid water. For diseased gums, double the dose,
and gargle with it several times a day.
The _Pâte Axérasive_ of Bazin, the celebrated perfumer, has the
distinction of being highly commended by the French Royal Academy of
Medicine. It is better for toilet use than soaps which contain so
much alkali. Take powder of bitter almonds, eight ounces; oil of the
same, twelve ounces; _savon vert_ of the perfumers, eight ounces;
spermaceti, four ounces; soap powder, four ounces; cinnabar, two
drachms; essence of rose, one drachm. Melt the soap and spermaceti with
the oil in a water-bath, add the powder, and mix the whole in a marble
mortar. It forms a kind of paste, which softens and whitens the skin
better than any soap known.
Make toilet waters and pastes of this kind in quantity, as they improve
with age. It costs about one fourth as much to prepare them as to
buy the same quantity at the perfumer’s, and one has the advantage
of a finer article. Do not use cheap soap for the toilet. Such is
almost always made of rancid or half-putrid fat, combined with strong
alkalies, which dry and crack the skin, sometimes causing dangerous
sores by the poisonous matter they introduce from vile grease. _Never_
allow such soap to touch the flesh of an infant. To do so is little
better than absolute cruelty. White soaps are the safest, as they are
only made of purified fat.
The feet should be washed every night and morning as regularly as the
hands. It preserves their strength and elasticity, and helps to keep
their shape. What person of refinement can take any pleasure in looking
at her own feet presenting the common appearance of distortion by shoes
_too tight in the wrong place_, and the dry, hardened skin of partial
neglect? One’s foot is as proper an object of pride and complacency
as a shapely hand. But where in a thousand would a sculptor find one
that was a pleasure to contemplate, like that of the Princess Pauline
Bonaparte, whose lovely foot was modeled in marble for the delight of
all the world who have seen it?
As nice care should be given to feet as to hands, beginning with a bath
of fifteen minutes in hot soap and water, followed by scraping with
an ivory knife, and rubbing with a ball of sand-stone, which will be
found most useful for a dozen toilet purposes. The nails may be left to
take care of themselves, with constant bathing and well-fitting shoes,
unless they have begun to grow into the flesh, when all to be done is
to scrape a groove lengthwise in each corner of the nail. The whole
foot should be anointed with purified olive-oil or oil of sweet almonds
after such a bath. A pair of stockings should be drawn on at night to
preserve the bedclothes from grease-spots. The oil will soak off the
old skin, and wear away the scaly tissue about the nails, while it
renders the soles as soft and pliant as those of a young child.
A daily change of stockings is as desirable for those who walk out as
a fresh handkerchief every morning--but how many people consider it
necessary? It may sound audacious to suggest that when laundry-work
is an item, a lady would show her ingrain refinement by washing her
own Balbriggan hose as truly as by stinting herself to two pair a
week on account of washer-women’s bills. As for the vulgarity of
wearing colored stockings “because they show dirt less,” it is to be
repudiated, save in the case of children, who are quite capable of
going through with a box of white stockings in a day, and looking none
the cleaner for it at the end. Our bootmakers are in fault about the
lining of shoes, which ought to be changeable when soiled. Soiled,
indeed! When are common shoes ever clean within? Our manufacturers are
the opposite of the French, whose workmen wear fresh linen aprons, and
wash their hands every hour, for fear of soiling the white kid linings
at which they sew. The time will come when we will find it as shocking
to our ideas to wear out a pair of boots without putting in new lining
as we think the habits of George the First’s time, when maids of honor
went without washing their faces for a week, and people wore out their
linen without the aid of a laundress. Cleanliness means health in every
case, and a plea must be offered for those neglected members, that only
find favor in our eyes by making themselves as diminutive as possible.