The Care of the Skin and Hair

Part 1

LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 1242 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

The Care of the Skin and Hair

And Other General Health Hints

Morris Fishbein, M. D.

Editor Journal American Medical Association and Hygeia, the Health Magazine.

HALDEMAN-JULIUS PUBLICATIONS GIRARD, KANSAS

Copyright, 1927, Haldeman-Julius Company.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Skin Diseases and Their Cure 5

Cosmetics 7

Skin Disease Quackery 8

Magic of Plastic Surgery Replaces Scarring Knife 10

Button in Savage’s Skull First Plastic Surgery 11

Beware of Beauty Doctor Who Offers Guarantees 13

Either Hair or Health Endangered by Dyes 15

Skin Eruptions Laid to Poison in Dyed Fur 17

Most Moles Harmless, But Watch Black Ones! 18

Flowers Carry Poison 20

Snow, Cold Water Best in Treating Frostbite 22

Wash Your Neck Well to Ward Off Boils 23

Psoriasis One of Most Annoying Skin Faults 25

Cauliflower Ears 26

Flopping Ear Needs Careful Operation 27

Rubber “Reducers” Are Foes of Comfort But Not of Fat 29

Be Careful in Use of Laxative Gums 30

Overeating Harmful After Middle Life 31

Part 2

CARE OF THE SKIN AND HAIR AND OTHER GENERAL HEALTH HINTS

SKIN DISEASES AND THEIR CURE

There are still persons who believe that every disease of the skin can be successfully treated with a salve, a lotion or a powder. This belief and the advertisements of nostrums for the treatment of skin disease are a reflection of the actual knowledge of such conditions held even by the medical profession a quarter of a century ago.

Today the methods of treatment of skin diseases include practically every form of apparatus, every method of medical administration known to medical science. This advance is a reflection of the application of knowledge in physics, chemistry, biology and bacteriology to medicine, and of a more thorough comprehension of the fact that the skin is not merely a protective covering for the body but an organ whose condition reflects that of the other tissues and influences them definitely.

Perhaps the greatest advance has been the X-ray and the knowledge that application of its rays would affect not only tumors, whose cause is unknown, but also inflammations and degenerations of the skin produced by parasitic organisms. Not only the rays of the X-ray tube, but also those of radium, of the sun and of the ultraviolet lamps are known to have definite effects on the skin. Radium is used for destroying cancer of the skin, masses of veins, birth marks, moles and similar unsightly excresences. As Dr. Fred Wise indicated at a recent meeting of specialists in diseases of the skin, the physician is no longer limited to any single form of treatment, but may attack such growths with any of the destructive rays that have been mentioned; he may freeze them with carbon dioxid snow; he may remove them surgically with the knife; he may dry them by passing an electric current through them, or cut them with a needle whose cutting power depends on vibrations produced by electric waves. In attacking certain parasitic diseases of the skin, the specialist reaches them through the blood, injecting combinations of dyes and metallic elements or specific drugs which produce the immediate death of the parasitic organisms when they come in contact with them.

There still remain infections and diseases of the skin which are not easily amenable to treatment. Pemphigus, in which there are tremendous wheals, blisters and similar eruptions, is not known to yield easily to any form of treatment, although it may be benefited on occasion by the use of drugs such as arsenic and quinine. Generalized changes of the nature of the skin resulting from disturbances of the nervous system and of the glands sometimes resist every form of medical attack. Research in the field of skin diseases is one of the most promising opportunities for investigation to the medical man with research instincts.

COSMETICS

Since investigation has been undertaken by physicians and chemists there is less and less likelihood of the sale or purchase of cosmetic preparations, including face creams, powders and lotions, containing poisonous ingredients, although at one time such metallic poisons as lead, bismuth, or arsenic could be found as ingredients of such beautifiers. Nowadays, the difficulty seems to be that there are a multiplicity of preparations which have no real warrant, since they differ only in unessential qualities from each other. There are, for example, dozens of creams sold for application to the skin with claims that they nourish the skin, when, as a matter of fact, there is no such thing as a skin food. All of these creams essentially are cold creams, modified by varying amounts of perfumes or other thinning or thickening factors.

These statements do not apply, however, to the creams that are used as depilatories. Most of the widely advertised ointments for this purpose have as their basis a salt of the metal barium. Application of the ointment removes the hair, but does not affect the growing end within the skin. In most instances the new growth of hair is thicker and coarser and darker than the original growth removed by the depilatory. In some instances, superfluous hair is removed by the application of the X-ray. It has been found, however, that X-ray machines seldom kill the living cell from which the hair grows, unless it is applied in dosage so strong as to produce definite changes in the skin itself.

Specialists in diseases of the skin are being called on to treat thickening of the skin, or so-called precancerous keratosis, resulting from the use of the X-ray for the removal of hair by inexperienced persons. Those who give special attention to these problems are agreed that the one certain method of removal of superfluous hair is the use of the electric needle. It must be understood, however, that it is possible to remove only a few hairs at a single treatment, and that the method requires great expertness in its application.

SKIN DISEASE QUACKERY

Faith springs eternal in the human breast and credulity is not the property of any single class. One finds our best educated citizens just as easily susceptible to false and fraudulent claims as the most ignorant. Indeed, in many instances, particularly in relation to medical science, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, since its possessor is likely to be impressed with his own ability to make suitable judgments.

Of particular interest in this connection are the many cosmetics offered to women who seek eternally for artificial beauty. According to an investigation recently made, the American public paid, in 1921, $150,000,000 for perfumery and cosmetics. There were purchased 240,000,000 packages of talcum and face powders and 18,000,000 packages of rouge.

Students of diseases of the skin constantly emphasize the difficulty of determining the nature of any eruption. Red spots and slight inflammations may be due to disturbances of digestion, to special sensitivity to various food substances, to eczema, to any one of a half-dozen infections, and possibly to tuberculosis or to syphilis.

Since the tendency of some minor conditions is to recover without treatment, persons are likely to indulge in self-treatment and thus to neglect the more serious complaints to a time when a cure is far more difficult than when they are seen early. Cancer of the skin appears in its beginning as a small and rather unnoticeable spot; if seen early, it is easily controlled, but if stimulated by the use of all sorts of caustic acids or pastes it may become so serious as to produce death.

The craze for beauty has also resulted in the tremendous rise of the beauty parlor. It is easy to remember the time when our largest cities could boast of but five or ten hair-dressing establishments. Today in the Boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx alone there are 1,177 hair-dressing establishments. Here women come not only for massages and permanent waves but also, frequently, for the treatment of diseases of the skin and for the removal of superfluous hair, moles, warts, or tumors.

These beauty parlors are the outgrowth, in many instances, of manufacturing establishments for the sale of cosmetics. Here cold cream masquerades under twenty different names and women purchase for considerable sums preparations which cannot possibly do the things that are claimed for them.

One finds “rose leaf cleansers,” “skin fresheners,” “face moulding creams,” “balsam tissue astringents,” “skin fatteners” and “skin thinners,” cleansing creams and vanishing creams, regardless of the fact that specialists in the disease of the skin have stated again and again that all that any cream can accomplish is simply to make the skin more pliable.

MAGIC OF PLASTIC SURGERY REPLACES SCARRING KNIFE

During the World War the mutilating injuries suffered by many of the men were assuaged through the development of new features in surgical technique.

Whereas formerly it was considered sufficient merely to sew up a wound, to amputate a shattered limb or to save life regardless of appearance, surgeons then began to consider operations with a view to the most presentable appearance possible after repair.

Continue reading The Care of the Skin and Hair free in the Wunder reader →