Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/259

 in women. The suspicion they create is, however, very unpleasant, as well as the loss of beauty, and they are quite as common in the best classes of society as among the poor and needy. Francis the First, King of France, the same of whom it is related that he stooped to pick up the pencil of Titian, was afflicted with them for several years. He was even philosophical enough not to resent a joke at their expense. One day, in his wars with the Emperor Charles V., of Germany, he was expressing some anxiety about the safe-*keeping of the crown-jewels. His brother, who stood by, dared to say:—

"Your majesty need give yourself no uneasiness about them. You always carry them under your own eyes."

The pun is broader in French, in which language these red swellings are familiarly called rubis, rubies.

The disease is often foreshadowed by flushing of the face and nose at meals, and whenever hot or spirituous drinks are taken. Though obstinate, it is curable, and so far from requiring a meagre diet, as so many people suppose, and consequently deny themselves even necessary food, it is a disease of debility, demanding plenty of good nourishing aliment. When quite recent, spirits of camphor which has been poured over fresh sliced horseradish is an efficient wash.

It is too often associated with some disorder of digestion, or with general feebleness, for local remedies