# The Ugly-Girl Papers/Chapter 15
### CHAPTER XV.

* The Fearful Malady of which no one Dies.
* Esprit Odontalgique.
* Gray Pastilles.
* Important to Smokers.
* Mouth Perfumes.
* Care of the Breath.
* Directions for Bathing.
* Perfumes for the Bath.
* Bazin's Pâte.
* Quality of Soaps.
* Bathing and Anointing the Feet.
* Nicety of Stockings.
* Delicate Shoe Linings.
* Feet of Pauline Bonaparte.
Among the recipes, more or less valuable, which come to light in old collections, one for the toothache, by Boerhaave, is too useful to be lost. Even beauties have the toothache sometimes, especially after going home from the Academy of Music on a snowy night with a tulle scarf folded about their heads, or after sitting with their backs to the window in a half-warmed parlor during a ceremonious call. Use before beauty, mademoiselles; and with no more excuse is proffered the Esprit Odontalgique, which should be kept in the dressing​room, ready for the slightest signs of that most terrible malady, from which nobody dies.
Alcohol of thirty-three degrees, one ounce; camphor, four grains; opium in powder, twenty grains; oil of cloves, eighty drops. The efficacy of this lotion will be seen at a glance, and no other authority for its use is needed than that of the learned and excellent physician who gave it its name.
Very properly follow the gray pastilles for purifying the breath. They do so, not by disguising it, but by reaching the root of the difficulty, arresting decay in the teeth, and neutralizing acidity of the stomach. The mixture is very simple: Chlorate of lime, seven drachms; vanilla sugar, three drachms; gum-arabic, five drachms—to be mixed with warm water to a stiff paste, rolled, and cut into lozenges.
Madame Celnart archly advises all good. wives to let their spouses know that these lozenges entirely remove the traces of tobacco in the breath. As a good wife will hardly inter​fere with a favorite habit of her husband who is fond of smoking, the least any gentleman can do is to render his presence acceptable after the indulgence.
Another pastille, preferable on some accounts to the above, but owing its value to the same principle, is made from chlorate of sodium, twenty-four grains; powdered sugar, one ounce; gum-adraganth, twenty grains; perfumer's essential oil, two drachms. Powder the chlorate in a glass mortar; put the powder in a cup, and pour in a little water; let it settle, and pour off. Repeat the process three times with fresh water, filtering what is poured off each time, and mix the gum and sugar with it, adding the perfume last.
A gargle for the mouth which combines all the virtues of Eau Angelique, and every other wash of heavenly name, is made of the chlorate of lime in powder, three drachms; distilled water, two ounces. Reduce the chlorate with a glass pestle in a glass mortar, add a third of the water, stir, and pour off, as di​rected before, till all is added. To this add two ounces of alcohol, in which is dissolved four drops of the volatile oil of roses and four drops of perfumer's essential oil. Half a teaspoonful of the solution in a wine-glass of water is to be used at a time as a tooth-wash and gargle for the mouth and gums.
With the best intentions as to physical neatness, many persons are unable to make the impression of their company wholly agreeable. They may remember with advantage that rinsing the mouth with this fluid six times a day is not too much pains in order to make themselves acceptable to others. There is no surer passport to esteem than an innocent, taintless person, which wins upon one before moral virtues have time to make their way. If you think this truth is repeated too often, study the impression made by the respectable people you meet for the next month. The result will satisfy you that those who are as neat as white cats are as one to fifteen of the careless, easily satisfied sort.
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