The Sunday globe., 1901-05-26
THE SKIN AND HAIR
The Globe Dgtails an Experience
i'm search of a Salve.
LADIES WITH MUSTASCHES

LADIES WITH MUSTASCHES
And How The Cure" is as Bad as The Disease
when They Try 10 Remove them-Curous In
formation Picked Up al the Drug Stores
which Upsets the Popular Notion Concerning
our Envelopes and Hrsute Appendages.
All who suffered from the heat in
Washington last summer, and their
name is legion, may or may not have
had the experience which the GLoBE
man went through with an eruption
of the skin, so thick and close that the
point of a pin could not find surface
clear enough to prick. We were COW
cred with rash or red pimples from
our forehead to our ankles, and we
believe that even the soles Of our feet
were similarly affected. This unusual
condition of our envelope" led us to
study the subject of the why and the
wherefore, and whether it was better
to have the rasn come out than go
inward" as the old saying has it.
Our investigation, which was, at first,
confined to the so-called "prickly heat
or rash extended into the causes of
skin disease in general, and very Gu
rious were the results the investigation
! led to. Constitutionally opposed to
hiding our light under a bushel' on
any subject we have knowledge Of
or think we have-we present our read
ers with the information obtained.
In our pilgrimage through this vale
! OF tears we have found nothing so
comforting as to be able to point out
that most Of the things people are sure
of are all nonsense. We are conndent
/ that this pleasure must be a thing OF
| beauty because it is a joy forever, II
| you only 90 deep enough into its study
/ you can always discover that the pop
ular notion OF it is wholly wrong. Ii
| is an unshaken article of belief with
most people that skin diseases are al
most always catching; that the blood
/ is bad" that you must be careful ot
you will drive it in and the patient
| will die, il nothing more, and that a
| boil is worth IS in Doctors bills saved.
/ They are all wrong, teetotally wrong
on the very best medical authority.
! Not more than two or three Of the hun
dred or so skin diseases catalogued
are catching, and the chances are that
the eruption is as innocent and as in
nocuous as a cold. If there is such
thing as bad blood" medicine has not
found it out. Next to nothing is known
in regard to the condition of blood in
disease. Chemical and microscopical
study has utterly failed to show that
there is any difference between the
blood in health and the blood in cuta-
neous disorders. Certain of them are
systoms of nervous breakdown, and i'm
perfect digestion causes others. Toma-
toes, bananas, strawberries, shelltish
and other articles of diet, harmless to
most of us, cause a rash to break out
on Others Heat affects some in the
same manner. Evidently the medical
profession does not fear driving the
disease in" for the treatment for GU
taneous affections is now wholly local.
A boil is an acute inflammation of the
tissues surrounding hair follicle, and
is due to some infection of the follicle
by a germ, generally the staphylocoo
Gus pyogenes aureus. We thought our
. I IEdutIb IlABnL llht W hAA0W NAAN AANAAAA's'
BOils come upon the just and the un'
just, on those who have good blood and
those who have bad blood What forms
inside the tormenting thing is not the
strained-out impurities Of the blood
for pus does not exist in the blood
1t is of local formation. A boil is not
worth cents, let alone IS. 1t is just
what your untutored Imagination says
it is, a confounded nuisance. If any
body owed us So and could either pay
it in cash or in boils, whichever We
preferred, we should take the casn
every time, even at a discount. We
think We should get more comfort that
way
In the old physiologies that we stud
led at school, when we were little, on
one of the advertising fly leaves in the
back of the book was a picture OF a
boy in long pants with his hair parted
on one side and reached up in the
middle. He held one arm bent stifly
at the elbow, pointing upward. With
the other he called attention to the
carpet, while he solemnly avowed: "
am fearfully and wonderfully made.
He was not alluding to the artists
work on him, though that fully justi
LIED his remark, but to the marvellous
construction Of the human body. It's
even so. 1t is astonishing how well
old Dame Nature has made out with
the material she had. The arrange
ments of bones and muscles and nerve
tissues are certainly ingenious, If the
evOlutionists will let us use that
phrase, but we take notice when she
wanted to get out something particu
larly meritoTious she made 1t out OF
raw-hide, thus verifying the old adage
There's nothing like leather" This
volume of human life may contain fas
cinating reading, but to our mind the
binding is the best part Of the book,
We discovered to our entire discom
fort that the rash which decorated our
binding" was no sign of the strength
and purity Of the blood, in being able
to throw it Off outwardly instead of
letting it strike in" and kill or sickea
us. This is the accepted theory but 1t
is all wrong.
We had other notions in common
with the average layman, which the
skin investigation induced us to re-
pudiate.
For instance, the popular notion sed-
ulously fostered by the BARRIERS who
get an extra fee for singeing, that the
hair is a tube and that when it is cut
off it bleeds, and the natural vitality
of It dribbles out into the atmosphere.
People have often been shown the hol-
| lowness of hairs when they have
| looked at them through n microscope.