CHAP. 47.—METHODS OF REMOVING SUPERFLUOUS HAIR. DEPILATORIES.

Depilatories are prepared from the blood, gall, and liver of the tunny, either fresh or preserved; as also from pounded liver of the same fish, preserved with cedar resin [396] in a leaden box; a recipe which we find given by the midwife Salpe [397] for disguising the age of boys on sale for slaves. A similar property belongs to the pulmo marinus,[398] to the blood and gall of the sea-hare, and to the sea-hare itself, stifled in oil. The same, too, with ashes of burnt crabs or sea scolopendræ,[399] mixed with oil; sea-nettles,[400] bruised in squill vinegar; and brains of the torpedo [401] applied with alum on the sixteenth day of the moon. The thick matter emitted by the small frogs, which we have described when treating [402] of eye-diseases, is a most efficient depilatory, if applied fresh: the same, too, with the frog itself, dried and pounded, and then boiled down to one-third in three heminæ of water, or else boiled in a copper vessel with oil in a like proportion. Others, again, prepare a depilatory from fifteen frogs, in manner already [403] stated under the head of remedies for the eyes. Leeches, also, grilled in an earthen vessel, and applied with vinegar, have the same property as a depilatory; the very odour, too, which attaches to the persons who thus burn them is singularly efficacious for killing bugs.[404] Cases are to be found, too, where persons have used castoreum with honey, for many days together, as a depilatory. In the case, however, of every depilatory, the hairs should always be removed before it is applied.