Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/166

 celebrated actress, Madame Vestris, was said to wrap her hands every night in thin slices of fresh meat. This was not nice, nor a particle more efficient than to anoint them with fresh olive oil or pure glycerine, and then, without wiping, draw on the caoutchouc gloves. Fresh, unsalted butter is likewise an admirable ointment, but lard or cold cream, which is often made from coarse, half rancid, but highly scented animal fats, should be shunned.

The hands are subject to a great number of deformities. A French surgeon has recently written a book of nigh three hundred pages on them. That is as much as saying we do not intend to dilate upon them here. In remedying them, it is not enough that the surgeon should seek to re-establish the use of the member. He should also seek to restore its beauty. This is too generally lost sight of. Here, as elsewhere, the claims of cosmetic surgery are apt to be disregarded, to the subsequent annoyance of the patient.

One of the commonest deformities is enlarged joints. Chronic rheumatism and hard work are their parents. There is not much to be done for them.

For warts, however, which are infinitely more common, household remedies are as plenty as blackberries. We tried the following in our young days, prescribed by an old family servant: Steal a piece of fresh meat. Cut it into as many fragments as you have warts. Bury the fragments under a stone. As fast as they