68 COSMETICS. 



It may well be called fatal ; not only to beauty, but in certain 

 cases to life also, and to health in all cases. 



In ordinary domestic usage, thus to write, in the ordinary 

 employment of skin-cosmetics by ladies themselves, violet- 

 powder, the so-called pearl-powder, and rouge, usually com- 

 plete the list. When female charms have so much waned 

 that higher artistic resources are needed, or are thought to be 

 needed, the case is one for out-of-door practice. Then come 

 the operations of enamelling and blue-veining, operations 

 that are kept a secret, but in performing which the chemist, 

 if he so pleased, could beat the professed artists who make 

 ladies ' beautiful for ever' out of the field. 



I have already adverted to collodion as being a material 

 that may be used to give the appearance of artificial skin, and 

 I have indicated some limitations to its employment. As 

 then stated, I have no doubt that a human individual, man or 

 woman, might be killed by the laying-on of an investiture of 

 collodion all over the body. Death would be induced by 

 occluding the cutaneous pores, checking exhalation, perspira- 

 tion, and skin-respiration. It does not thence follow, however, 

 that a layer of collodion may not be deposited over limited sur- 

 faces of the skin with impunity, nay in some cases with advan- 

 tage. Suppose, for instance, that a finger has been cut or 

 scalded, and the cuticle removed. The immediate injury may 

 not be grave, but it becomes irritating through collateral cir- 

 cumstances. Not only does the part look ugly something to 

 be regarded in a pretty hand but every touch of salt, vinegar, 

 soap, and a thousand other things that might be mentioned, 

 and that we are obliged to touch, induce and keep-up a 

 troublesome irritation. The wound thus perpetually worried, 

 so to speak, gets worse and worse, and all for want of cover- 

 ing. In such a case, collodion is a real boon. I mean true 

 collodion, or solution of gun-cotton in ether. There is a 

 spurious collodion, which is made by dissolving gutta-percha, 

 he effect of which is by no means so good. 



