Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/243

 aside. Either it is the liver that is torpid, enlarged, or diseased, or there is dyspepsia, or some malady or irregularity peculiar to women, or, what is perhaps as common a cause as any, there are internal piles.

Nothing local need be attempted until the general health is thoroughly cared for. Then, with a fair prospect of success, we may proceed to treat the spot itself. This is to be done in the following manner: Rub the whole of the spot, but none of the skin beyond its border, at night with this pomatum:—

Elder-flower ointment     one ounce; Sulphate of zinc          twenty grains.

Leave it on till morning, then wash it away with white Castile soap and soft water, and bathe the part repeatedly with the following lotion:—

Citric acid           thirty grains; Infusion of roses     half a pint.

After the spot has disappeared, which, if the treatment succeeds, will be within a fortnight, the borax and glycerine, or the iodide of potash lotion, should be regularly used, so as to prevent its return.

This is as efficacious a treatment for liver-spots as can be carried out by a person not familiar with drugs. There is another, in which a strong mercurial and resin plaster is laid on the spot at night, and oxymel of squills rubbed in during the day, which has been praised by many as of certain effect (the health being