Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/314

 extraordinary growth of hair, not only on the head, but over the whole body. This is occasionally observable in consumptives, after violent fevers, and in the course of diseases peculiar to the sex. The fact offers us another opportunity for remarking, that the consideration of the hair and its diseases can never be separated from the study of the physiology and maladies of the whole body.

The Oriental ladies have a horror of superfluous hairs, and destroy them with the most sedulous care. Therefore the cosmetic science of Western Europe, which was a creation of later date, first learned the secret of depilatories, or hair-removing compounds, from their Eastern neighbors.

The preparation chiefly used in the Asiatic harems is called the rusma. For a long time its composition was unknown, but now-a-days it is not easy to conceal the ingredients of a mixture from the prying eyes of the chemist. The true Oriental rusma has been carefully analyzed, and found to be composed of a form of arsenic, called arsenical iron pyrites, and quicklime, in the proportion of two parts of the former to one part of the latter, both in fine powder.

It is imitated by mixing one part of the yellow sulphuret of arsenic, known in commerce as orpiment, with quicklime, and powdered starch. This is made into a paste with water, and laid on the part from which it is intended to remove the hair. As soon as