Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/309

 she may recover a very respectable share of hair by the diligent employment of the same means. Some physicians commence by blistering the bald scalp, so as to restore it to a more vigorous life, and the result often proves the wisdom of the proceeding. The same end may be attained by vigorous inunction of tincture of cantharides, or oil of cajuput, which latter has a high reputation as a trichogene.

That variety of baldness which appears in entirely bare spots over the head, while the hair around them is as thick as ever (alopecia areata), may often be healed with great promptness by rubbing thoroughly into the spots every morning and evening a little oil of turpentine. The bareness should cease extending after a few days, and after a few weeks small downy hairs should be perceptible, rising on the white skin. This is one of those venerable remedies which we find mentioned in writers as far back as the Roman empire, and which every few years some person, in ignorance of its antiquity, discovers anew, and makes loud laudations of it. But this only goes to show that it is really a trusty application.

DANDRIFF, AND SCURF OF THE SCALP.

When one brushes and combs the most healthy hair which has been neglected for a few days, more or less fine whitish scales will be brushed out, such as we are very apt to see on the coat-collars of gentlemen too