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[1] in a leaden box; a re-
cipe which we find given by the midwife Salpe[2] for disguising
the age of boys on sale for slaves. A similar property belongs
to the pulmo marinus,[3] 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,[4] mixed with oil;
sea-nettles,[5] bruised in squill vinegar; and brains of the torpedo[6]
applied with alum on the sixteenth day of the moon.
The thick matter emitted by the small frogs, which we have
described when treating[7] 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[8] 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.[9] 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.