Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/260

 only to avail much, so that we can but admonish those who suffer from it, or who are threatened with it, to put themselves on proper constitutional treatment.

Hives, or the nettle-rash, is a curious complaint from which some persons suffer very frequently. The skin becomes red, and swells in ridges, similar to those caused by the stings of a nettle, or a smart blow of a cowskin. We have seen instances where it appeared regularly after eating lobster, and in another case from an oyster supper.

There are any number of domestic remedies vaunted for it, not one of which is of much value. Too often it is constitutional, or else dependent upon some dis-*order of the digestive organs, for any simple application to do good. Washing with the borax and glycerine lotion promises well. Persons who are subject to it should not wear flannel next the skin, should be very careful about their diet, and should use some stimulating lotion (a pint of camphor water with one teaspoonful of tincture of red pepper) once or twice a week.

Heat rash, or prickly heat, is an invariable concomitant of hot weather, with some whose skins are delicate. Children suffer much from it. A cooling lotion, such as a few teaspoonfuls of dilute solution of the subacetate of lead in a half pint of water, or a heaping spoonful of baking soda in the same quantity, or a mixture