Page:Love and its hidden history.djvu/186

 bald before their time. Baldness earlier than the fiftieth year is owing, ordinarily, either to an hereditary disposition, or excess of some kind or other. Bear's grease, since the time of the beautiful Cleopatra, who used and highly praised it, has been in great repute as a remedy for the falling off of the hair. It, however, does not seem to have more effect than any other unctuous substance, which has none at all."

[Again Dr. Cazenave is beyond his depth. In 1861-2 I was travelling through parts of Asia, Europe, and Africa, gathering material for my work concerning and entitled " Pre-Adamite Man," and my Rosicrucian romance, " Dhoula Bel; or, the Magic Globe," the antecedent work to " The Wonderful Story of Ravalette," and from the extreme heats of Egypt and Syria lost my hair, but the following preparation — the best in the world, I think — restored it, long, silken, soft, and luxuriantly curly:— Alcohol, bay rum, glycerine, each 4 ounces. Castor oil, olive oil, each 3 ounces. Oil cloves, 20 drops. Ammonia, tablespoonful. Bergamot and oil lemon, each, l-8th of an ounce. Tincture cantharides, l-4th oz. Citronella, a little.

Wash the head before using, and shake the bottle well. Nothing I ever saw equals this simple preparation.]

"A good result has been obtained," says Cazenave, "in his hands, from the application of this:— Ox marrow, 1 ounce. Aromatic tincture, 1 drachm.

Mix into an ointment, and apply after having rubbed the scalp lightly with a linen dipped in a wash made of equal parts of the tincture of sulphate of quinine and the aromatic tincture.

"People will persist in dyeing their hair, notwithstanding that they deceive nobody by the process but themselves. The dyes ordinarily used burn the hair, destroy the bulbs, pervert the secretions, and produce inevitably a premature baldness. The only safe applications are those like this, which contains no caustic or poisonous property:—