Dyestuff

“ In these journeys I have been where much cloth hath been dyed; and have at sundry times walked over ground where much of their dyestuffs has drained away. This hath produced a longing in my mind that people might come into cleanness of spirit, cleanness of person, and cleanness about their houses and garments. Dyes being invented partly to please the eye, and partly to hide dirt, I have felt in this weak state, when traveling in dirtiness, and affected with unwholesome scents, a strong desire that the nature of dyeing cloth to hide dirt may be more fully considered. ”

“ The Natural Mordant Colours.—It is interesting to note that nearly all the natural or vegetable dyestuffs employed belong to the class of Mordant Colours, the most important of these being included in the following list:—Madder, Cochineal, Peachwood, Sapanwood, Limawood, Camwood, Barwood, Sanderswood, Old Fustic, Young Fustic, Quercitron Bark, Persian Berries, Weld, Logwood. ”

“ At the present time it may truly be said that the dyer is furnished with quite an embarrassing number of coal-tar dyestuffs which are capable of producing every variety of colour possessing the most diverse properties. Many of the colours produced are fugitive, but a considerable number are permanent and withstand various influences, so that the general result for some years has been the gradual displacement of the older natural dyestuffs by the newer coal-tar colours. ”

“ These dyestuffs, used of course with a mordant, produce beautiful shades, which are fast to water and light.
Perhaps no greater nor more remarkable changes have been made in any industry than in that of dyeing, for, the saving of labor, energy, time and money by the use of modern chemical agencies is163 of a magnitude not easily appreciable. New ways have completely supplanted the old. ”

“ The lips turn pale, the eyes loose their brightness and by degrees the white grows as it were greenish, the gums want their due firmness, with their proper colour; and an unpleasing foulness grows upon the teeth: the inside of the mouth is pale and furred, and the throat dry and husky: the colour of the skin is pale (though there are periods when the face is florid) and as the obstruction gathers ground, and more affects the liver, the whole body becomes yellow, tawny, greenish, and at length of that deep and dusky hue, to which men of swift imagination have given the name of blackness. ”

“ Woman ought to make her hair yellow,” nor, I would add, stain her cheeks, nor paint her eyes. Unawares the poor wretches destroy their own beauty, by the introduction of what is spurious. At the dawn of day, mangling, racking, and plastering themselves over with certain compositions, they chill the skin, furrow the flesh with poisons, and with curiously prepared washes, thus blighting their own beauty. Wherefore they are seen to be yellow from the use of cosmetics, and susceptible to disease, their flesh, which has [278] been shaded with poisons, being now in a melting state. ”

“ Going out in the wind and sun causes more pigment to collect, and we say we are tanned. If the pigment collects in spots, it makes freckles.
There is no way of removing at once freckles or tan. They usually disappear in the winter. No powders nor any other kind of medicine should be taken to make the skin white and smooth. Such medicines may contain poison and are likely in time to hurt the body. The skin may usually be kept soft and smooth by washing well with soft water and good soap. ”

“ And silly women, who dye their grey hair and anoint their locks, grow speedily greyer by the perfumes they use, which, are of a drying nature. Wherefore also those that anoint themselves become drier, and the dryness makes them greyer. For if greyness is an exsiccation of the hair, or defect of heat, the dryness drinking up the moisture which is the natural nutriment of the hair, and making it grey, how can we any longer retain a liking for unguents, through which ladies, in trying to escape grey hair, become grey? ”

“ First of all, you must keep your skin clean, and that's a particular job.
You have nearly thirty miles of pores in your body. These pores are sewers; they discharge in a healthy person nearly two pounds of waste material every day.
If these pores are stopped up or clogged, the waste material is secreted in the skin.
The stopped pores secrete the greasy waste matter. This greasy substance attracts dirt, dust and germs, and soon blackheads, pimples or blotched skin will result.
Washing the skin with strong soap is not good. ”

“ Colours which "come off" should be avoided, as, even if they do not come in contact with the skin, particles of them enter the body with the breath, and if the dye is poisonous they act injuriously in that way. ”

“ Thus, while our general love for color leads us to prize golden hair, we do not like a sallow complexion; while it leads us to see beauty in rosy cheeks and red lips, which are signs of a healthy circulation, we do not admire the same redness in the nose, where it is usually a result of dyspepsia or dissipated habits, either of which is bad for the race at large. ”

“ The various cosmetics sold by perfumers, assuming such miraculous powers of beautifying the complexion, all contain, in different proportions, preparations of mercury, alcohol, acids, and other deleterious substances, which are highly injurious to the skin; and their continual application will be found to tarnish it, and produce furrows and wrinkles far more unsightly than those of age, beside which they are frequently absorbed by the vessels of the skin, enter the system, and seriously disturb the general health. ”

“ The pigmentation of the skin in these toxic people is a very marked feature. Like many of the symptoms which result from intestinal stasis, but in a greater degree, it varies with the colour of the hair. ”

“ Disease is a fermentation and decay-process of body-substance or of surplus and unnatural food-material, which in course of time has accumulated, especially in the digestive organs, and which makes its appearance in the shape of mucus-excretion.
That is, it means in the last instance nothing but the chemical decomposition, the decay of cellular albumen. As is well known, this process is accompanied by stench, while nature combines the originating of new life with fragrance (the building of plants.) Properly man in perfect health should exhale fragrance, particularly so with his hair. ”

“ Of course, it is absurd to imagine that white gets dirty sooner than any colour: it simply shows the dirt more. From the dust of the surrounding air, and from contact with dirty surfaces the clothes take up constantly a certain amount of impurity; but besides this outside dirt, they absorb a great deal of those refuse matters from our bodies, of which I spoke in the second chapter. Every day over two pints of dirty water pass through the pores of our skins in the form of sensible and insensible perspiration. ”

“ All the food we eat can not be used, and some parts of the body are wearing out all the time. If the waste stayed inside, we should become ill. In the skin there are thousands and millions of little tubes called pores, which help carry away the waste. If you become very warm, you say you are “sweating,” or per-spir ́ing; that is, drops of water come out all over your body. They come through the pores, or little holes in the skin. But we sweat, or perspire, all the time, whether we can see it or not. If the pores of the skin were stopped up, a person would soon die. ”

“ Every man whose admiration is worth having will infinitely prefer a freckled, or even a pallid or smallpox-marked, face to one showing traces of powder or greasy ointments, or lifeless, cadaverous enamel, opaque as ebony blackness.
If a woman’s skin is so morbidly sensitive as to be injured by ordinary water and good soap, it is a sign of ill-health which calls for residence in the country and the mellowing rays of the sun. ”

“ In the pustular and bullous varieties there may be mild or grave systemic symptoms, but even in these types the constitutional involvement is, in most instances, slight in comparison to the intensity of the cutaneous disturbance.
What is the course of dermatitis herpetiformis?
Extremely chronic, in most instances lasting, with remissions, indefinitely. The skin is rarely entirely free. From time to time the type of the disease may undergo change. From the continued irritation and scratching more or less pigmentation results. ”

“ Do you know one way we can tell if all the organs are doing their work well? By watching for the sign language. If the blood is not carrying the skin sufficient nourishment, it will be very pale and dull looking. If the waste materials are not being carried off, they may accumulate in the skin and clog the pores. Then we will have pimples or blackheads. Each person's skin is a law unto itself, and what is beneficial to one may not be to another. ”

“ Nearly all the people were disfigured by dark blotches on the skin, the effect of a cutaneous disease very prevalent in this part of the country. The face of one old man was completly blackened, and looked as though it had been smeared with black lead, the blotches having coalesced to form one large patch. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that as the hair in some children is preternaturally dry and in others unusually oily, and that as this condition may vary in the same individual according to the state of health, so the degree of natural oiliness or dryness of the skin may vary greatly in individuals and in accordance with season and general condition. ”

“ When the foul matters which ought to be eliminated by the skin and quickly removed from the body are allowed to remain unremoved, the skin becomes clogged and inactive, soon loses its natural luster and color, becoming dead, dark, and unattractive. ”

“ If the clothing worn is not often washed, and frequently aired it becomes filthy with impurities which are thrown off from the body by sensible and insensible perspiration. And if the garments worn are not frequently cleansed from these impurities, the pores of the skin absorb again the waste matter thrown off. The impurities of the body, if not allowed to escape, are taken back into the blood and forced upon the internal organs. Nature, to relieve herself of poisonous impurities, makes an effort to free the system. ”

“ The last and greatest achievement of medical science is not recorded in these pages. It is only recorded in ourselves. For that blue pigmentation in your eyes and fingers is due to the Sarakoff-Harden bacillus which closes once and for all the chapter of medicine. ”

“ A very damp or a very dry atmosphere has been supposed to be more influential in modifying the colour of the skin than mere heat; but as D'Orbigny in South America, and Livingstone in Africa, arrived at diametrically opposite conclusions with respect to dampness and dryness, any conclusion on this head must be considered as very doubtful. [55]
Various facts, which I have given elsewhere, prove that the colour of the skin and hair is sometimes correlated in a surprising manner with a complete immunity from the action of certain vegetable poisons, and from the attacks of certain parasites. ”

“ From the wood which the soldier had used, Bonaparte absorbed a poison that gave him a skin disease, by which he was annoyed the remainder of his life.] Painters absorb so much lead through the pores of their hands that they are attacked with colic. [Footnote: Cosmetics, hair dyes, etc., are exceedingly injurious, not only because they tend to fill the pores of the skin, but because they often contain poisonous matters that may be absorbed into the system, especially if they are in a solution.] ”

“ In consequence the face will appear lean and haggard, the skin shrivelled and folded, and lines and wrinkles will appear already in the faces of young women. Besides, as the sufficient amount of fluids will be wanting, the toxic products formed daily in our bodies is not washed out through those natural channels, the kidneys and the intestines, but will take their way through the skin, and eruptions and pimples will develop, much to the damage of the complexion. ”

“ Now, my Lord, when the number of those that dye groweth fewest, the number of those that goe abrode with sores is greatest, the violence of the disease to kill being abated. And therfore while any plage is, though the number reported of them that dye be small, the number infectious is so great that playes are not to be permitted. ”

“ The black appearance is really due the accumulation of dirt which gets under the edges of the skin of the enlarged sweat glands and cannot be removed in the ordinary way by washing, because the abnormal, hardened secretion of the gland itself becomes stained. ”

“ The skin, being exposed to all external influences, discloses the symptoms of all forms of skin disease, the names of which are legion.
The skin specialist termed "dermatologist" is another production which flourishes—more or less—upon the ignorance of the public. The patient, alas, is less fortunate. He tries one after another until disgusted he sometimes resorts to special diet. Sometimes this may help, if he choose a certain kind of vegetable diet, and especially if the vegetables are such as contain a great deal of silica; for silica is the mineral basis of skin tissue. ”

“ Dermatitis herpetiformis is a somewhat rare inflammatory disease, characterized by an eruption of an erythematous, papular, vesicular, pustular, bullous or mixed type, with a decided disposition toward grouping, accompanied by itching and burning sensations, with, as a rule, more or less consequent pigmentation, and pursuing usually a chronic course with remissions. ”