The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-07
The Cosmetic Peril
By x. AnDINGToN BRUCE

Of special interest to an unfortunately large number. of women is paper read by q Cleveland physician, Dr. H. H. Cole, at the recent annual meeting of the American Medical Association. It's subject was the perils run by women who make use of aftifi- cial beautifiers
 Emphatically, and with an abundance of illustrative cases from clinical experience, Dr. Cole denounced this practice as poten- tiaf health menace of real seriousness, His indictment of cosmetics ranged from face paints and creams to hair dyes.
 Without going SO far as to declare that every cosmetic is dangerous to health, he called attention ito the fact that many con- tain poisonous ingredients. Lead, mercury, bismuth, arsenic, resorcinol, phenoI bodies, pyrogallic acid, nitric acid, and wood alcohol were some of the poisons listed by him as being found in preparations applied by wom- en to their face, their hands, their hair.
 Applied for any length of time, grave local or systemic effects may become manifest. As in these instances, selected from the many used by Dr. Cole to reinforce his warning to cosmetic users:
 .I have recently seen ia% wouiah with on extensive. diffuse inflammation of the head, face, ears and neck, the eyes being swollen shut. On close questioning she admitted that she had recently had her hair dyed in rep utable beauty parlor. Analysis of the nos trum used showed that it contained g per cent. of lead acetate.
 Head is sometimes a constituent of face enamels and ,Teams to give them softening feel. Lead also enters into the composition of certain face powders. good example being lead carbonate. often called flake white9 This preparation had been guilty of numerous eases of lead mtoxication.
 Mercury in the form of ealomel also enters into the manufacture of certain toilet creams We have recently seen q patient who con suited us for peculiar. bluish diseoloratiOn of the skin of the face. We had the patients toilet cream analysed. and it was found to contain calomel constituent.
 Most of the so-called rice powders rec commended for the face by the beauty spe. cialists contain little or no rice. La Wall. in sixteen examinations of so-called rice pow ders. found only two to be pure Six con tained some rice. and the rest tale, corn starch, zine oxid. chalk and bismuth subni- trates
 "A short time ago we had patient con fined to the hospital with a generalized der matitis--almost fatal in character This pa- tient gave a straight history of the use of a well advertised hair tonic. Analysis revealed that the preparation contained salicylic acid, menthoI. and phenel bodies presumably re- sorcinol.
 Wood alcohol too often enters into the manufacture of hair tonics as well as that of bay rum and like toilet w4ters. As physi- clans we refuse the use of wood alcohol for rubbing our patients, yet any young girl or woman may walk into a store and purchase toilet lotion which. in perhaps S3 per cent. of eases, will have wood alcohol at its base" !"
 Considering that the use of cosmetics, to judge from department of commerce. statis- tics, is steadily on the increase, this alarmist note from medical practice would seem to be sorely needed.
 Manufacturers of cosmetics will hardly welcome it. Yet public safety and well-being must remain the paramount consideration.
 Some poisonous substances should be le- gally banned from use in the making of cos. metics. As for others, potentially though not invariably poisonous, at the very least it should be required that label information of their presence and amount be given.