It may be stated once for all that this practice is decidedly injurious. It may fail altogether in producing the desired result; it is never unattended by a certain amount of unpleasant circumstances, and frequently with evil results.

In the first place, the alteration of the abnormal colour, so far as the general aspect of the face is concerned, has an effect the very reverse of that which was intended. Every constituent part of man tends to make the human machine one harmonious whole . the figure, the stature, the skin, the hair, the gait, etc.

Fair hair is associated with a sanguineous and lymphatic temperament, a fine and white skin, blue eyes, and a soft and mild expression. Black hair, on the contrary, is generally connected with a bilious habit of body, a muscular and nervous temperament, a dark and yellowish skin, lively black eyes and a bold, proud air. Red hair is associated with a peculiar constitution, although closely approaching to the fair type. In this variety the skin is transparent, fresh, and presents a peculiar limpidity, which belongs exclusively to the colour of hair mentioned.

To what absurd contrasts, then, are those persons not exposed, who, from idle vanity, attempt to break the bond of union which exists between the hair and the rest of the body? If, then, from the impression that red hair is a disfigurement, it is dyed black what relation can exist between this new colour, and the soft blue eye, and a skin so fine and so susceptible, that the sun's rays seem to penetrate it, in the form of those lentiginous spots commonly called freckles.

These objections do not apply with equal force to those cases where the object is merely to disguise partial dis-colouration of the hair; but, at the same time, it is not always easy to produce the exact shade of the original. colour, and when the hair begins to grow this partial discolouration reappears and discloses the dye.

Finally, when this discolouration is widely diffused over the head, and requires an extensive application of the dye, in the case of an old man for ex ample, the hair will then present a lustre, brilliancy and tint, in melancholy contradistinction with the faded and wrinkled skin, dull leaden eye, furrowed cheek, and broken and tot-tering gait.

Besides, experience has sufficiently established the fact, that the ingredients of which the dyes are composed, are far from being: free from danger or inconvenience. The texture of the hair itself is deteriorated by them.

Composed as they are generally, of very active remedies, they burn the hair, alter the piliferous capsule , arrest the natural secretion of the hair and favour the production of baldness, They also frequently produce inflam-mation of the scalp. I have met with many cases in which females who had been in the habit of using those dyes were reduced to the sad alternative of maintaining a disagreeable and painful eruption, the result of the ingredients employed, or to abandon the disguise they were intended to produce.

Since we cannot hope to prohibit altogether the use of compositions for dyeing the hair, it only remains to point out those that are the least in jurious, and most likely to answer the purpose sought for.

From the earliest time the following substances have been employed to blacken the hair: - The oil of cade, gall nuts, the lye of vine branches, preparations of lead; ravens' eggs have been extolled, probably because the colour of that bird is the most perfect black; putrified swallows, colocynth, etc. However, experience has shown that a certain number of preparations possess more or less efficacy, the principal of which I shall here point out.

Preparations of silver are U6cd in -annus forms; as, for example, a po-uado composed of nitrate of silver, cream of tartar, ammoniac, and prepared lard.

This pomade is to be applied to the hair by the aid of the brush and comb. They are also used in the form of paste: - Nitrate of silver, proto-nitrate of mercury, and distilled water. Dissolve - strain, and wash the residue with sufficient water to make a paste.

A clear paste is made of this solution and a sufficient quantity of starch, which is then carefully applied to the hair in the evening. The head is covered with a cap of gummed taffeta during the night, and the following morning the paste is washed off, and the hair anointed with any simple ointment. {See 270, 271.)