The more frequently the surface is cleansed of scorbutic and scaly impurities, the more easy and comfortable we feel.'

French Pomatums and Oils.-Put into a metal or porcelain pan a certain quantity of mutton or deer suet, and melt it by steam heat; pick carefully the flowers required for the colour, put them into the liquid fat, and let them remain. from twelve to twenty-four hours, when it will draw out the odour from the flowers, and become by this means highly perfumed; the fat is then to be strained from the flowers, and fresh fat added, till the pomade is of the strength required: these various strengths of pomatum being denoted by the French makers as Nos. 6, 12, 18, and 24, the higher numerals indicating the amount of fragrance in them. For perfumed oils the same operation is followed; but in place of suet, fine olive oil, or oil of ben, from the ben-nuts of the Levant, is used. These oils are called Huile Antique of such and such a flower. (Piesse.)

M. Chiris, of Paris, is known for his excellent flower pomades and oils. These are made by infusing flowers in lard, suet, or oil, the chief necessity being to use as a basis a perfectly inodorous grease, so that its own odour may in no way interfere with the especial flowers to be introduced. It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that the bear is wholly innocent of contributing to the making of pomades, 'bear's grease.' The fat of the bear, from its rancid and coarse nature, is destructive to pomades of all sorts. M. Chiris employs 500 workpeople of both sexes in the different departments of his manufactories, and lays claim to being the first cultivator of the rose geranium in Algeria.

Jasmine Pomade and Oil may be made as follows, by absorption, or, as the French term it, enfleurage; that is, by spreading a mixture of pure lard and suet on a glass tray,

and sticking the fresh-gathered flowers all over it, leaving them to stand a day or so, and repeating the operation with fresh flowers; when the grease will absorb the odour. Finally, the pomade is scraped off the glass or slate, melted at as low a temperature as possible, and strained. Oils, impregnated with the fragrance, are also prepared much in the same way. Layers of cotton wool, previously steeped in oil of ben, are covered with jasmine flowers, which is repeated several times; finally, the cotton is squeezed under a press. The jasmine oil thus produced is the Huile Antique au Jasmin of the French perfumers. The extract of jasmine is prepared by pouring rectified spirit on the jasmine pomade or oil, and allowing them to remain together for a fortnight at a summer heat.

Here it may be interesting to describe the means of extracting fragrance, as illustrated in the Paris Exhibition of 1867. There are four principal modes:

Distillation is too familiar a process to require description; but en passant, it may be observed that an improvement in the art consists in suspending the flowers in the still on a sort of sieve, and allowing a jet of steam to pass through and carry off the fragrant particles. To illustrate the entire process of Distillation, Mr. Rimmel erected at the Paris Exhibition an outhouse or cottage, containing a still in action. Expression is confined to obtaining essences from the rinds of the citrine series, comprising lemon, orange, bigarrade, bergamot, cedrat, and limette. The common and rough process by which we obtain perry and cider, in an unscientific way, describes the manner of working by 'expression;' but the mode varies in different countries. Maceration and Absorption are very curious processes, and especially worth notice, both being founded on the intense attraction which fragrant molecules exhibit towards fatty bodies—a strange predilection, which has proved of enormous use to manufacturers. Maceration is used for the less

T

delicate flowers; for even in the sphere of dainty sweets there are shades and degrees of delicacy, such as the rose, orange,` jonquil, violet, and cassia. A certain quantity of grease being placed in a pan and brought to an oily consistency, flowers are then thrown in and left, after which the grease is taken out and pressed in horsehair bags, when the essences are obtained. The process of absorption, or what the French term 'enfleurage, is chiefly confined to extracting the aroma of the jasmine or tuberose. M. Séméria has invented a new mode of enfleurage, by placing the flowers on nets suspended between the frames, in lieu of laying them in the grease.

For cleaning the Teeth the following preparations are much used. Camphor mixture, made by putting a piece of camphor the size of a nutmeg into a quart of spring water; shake it occasionally, and in two or three days, dip into it a tooth-brush, and add a little prepared chalk. Honey mixed with finely-powdered charcoal makes the teeth as white as snow. Camphorated chalk, much used, consists of one ounce of prepared chalk; half an ounce of powdered orrisroot; camphor in powder, a quarter of an ounce. Quinine tooth-powder consists of chalk, starch, and orris-powder, and sulphate of quinine sifted together. An excellent mouth-wash is made as follows: Dissolve two ounces of borax in three pints of boiling water; before quite cold, add to it a tea-spoonful of tincture of myrrh, with a tablespoonful of spirits of camphor, and bottle the mixture for use. A wine-glassful, added to half a pint of tepid water, is sufficient for each application. This dentifrice applied daily, preserves and beautifies the teeth, extirpates all tartarous adhesion, produces a pearl-like whiteness, arrests decay, and induces a healthy action to the gums. Charcoal not only cleans the teeth, but is a sweetener of the breath. Still, it seems to act too severely on the enamel, which, with a hard

brush, it cuts into groves, like a file; and we know that it is used for polishing steel, and taking out file-marks. The following is an excellent tooth-powder: prepared chalk, six ounces; cassia-powder, half an ounce; orris-root in powder, one ounce; mix.

Spots on the Face may be removed by the use of a weak solution of borax in rose-water, constantly applied by means of a thin linen cloth; the redness which often affects the nose of delicate persons, and the accompanying sense of heat, may be similarly removed. Sir William Knighton prescribed the following lotion for pimples: Mix half a dram of liquor of potass with three ounces of spirits of wine, and apply it to the pimples with a camel-hair pencil; if this be too strong, dilute it with pure water.

Angel-Water was a very fashionable perfume in the seventeenth century. We find in the Accomplished Female Instructor the following recipe: 'Angel-water, an excellent perfume; also a curious wash to beautify the skin. Prepare a glaz'd earthen pot, and put into it sixteen ounces of orangeflower water, a quarter of a pound of benjamine, two ounces of storax, half an ounce of cinnamon, and a quarter of an ounce of cloves grosly bruised, with three drams of calamus aromaticus; set them over hot embers or a gentle fire to simmer or bubble well up; when about a fifth part is consumed, add a bladder of musk, and a few minutes after take it off and let it cool, pour it off by inclination from the settlings, and put it into a thick glass bottle; and of the dross you may make perfumed cakes, or sweet bags, to lay among clothes.'

Wash-balls were an old form of soap, before the days of Queen Anne. Dean Swift uses the term by way of odd comparison. 'I asked a poor man how he did,' remarked Swift. He said he was like a wash-ball, always in decay.'

DOMESTIC REMEDIES.

T has been shrewdly remarked by Goethe, that 'he who studies his body too much becomes deceased-his mind becomes mad;' and we

are well convinced that many of the men and women of the present day might, with great justice, have another clause to the well-known Italian epitaph: 'I was well-wished to be better-read medical books-took medicine and died.' In no other science, indeed, does Pope's maxim, that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing,' hold so strongly as in medicine; for those who dabble in medical lore, dealt out in works professing to be popular, are almost certain to suppose themselves afflicted with every disease about which they read. They forthwith take alarm at the probable consequences, and having some lurking suspicion that they may have mistaken the symptoms, they follow the prescriptions laid down in their book in secret, lest they should bring themselves into open ridicule.

Dr. Tanner, in his excellent work, The Practice of Medicine, has well observed: 'The skill of the physician is shown by the administration of the proper remedy, in the proper quantity, at the proper time. A druggist's apprentice can tell what agents will purge, vomit, or sweat; but a man` must be practically conversant with disease to be rightly