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PREFACE

THE following “Letters to Ladies” originally appeared, between the autumn of 1884 and the spring of 1886, in the columns of The Lady’s Pictorial. The success they enjoyed, and the large amount of correspondence to which they gave rise, suggested the advisability of reproducing them in a collected form as a manual for popular use. They have, therefore, been revised and remodelled for this purpose, and are now, with considerable additions and improvements, offered to the general public.

The writer trusts that her name and medical diploma will constitute a sufficient guarantee of the good faith and serious intent with which the book is put forth. No lady possessing any scientific qualification, has, hitherto, so far as she is aware, interested herself specially in the study of the “cosmetic arts,” or attempted to instruct her sex on matters connected with the improvement and preservation of physical grace and good looks. Yet the demand for such

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instruction is universal, and, obviously, one who is both a woman and a doctor, competent to understand at once what is required, and the most efficient method of supplying it, is, from every point of view, the fittest exponent of the subject.

Advice on “beauty and the toilet” would be impertinent and unbecoming in a member of the sterner sex, while ladies who lack the advantage of a professional education labour under considerable difficulties when dealing with questions which involve technical knowledge of anatomy, physiology, chemistry, and hygiene. It is hoped that the want indicated will be met by the present manual, and that its use may save many ladies the embarrassment and expense of personally consulting a physician on matters which they feel to be trivial from the medical point of view, and difficult to explain to the masculine intelligence, but of which the importance to themselves is, nevertheless, considerable. In such dilemmas, recourse is often preferably had to quack remedies or to deleterious pigments and washes, with a result that not infrequently shows itself in subsequent irreparable damage to the skin or grave disturbance of the health.

Care has been taken, in compiling the following “Letters,” to recommend only those cosmetics and specialities which have either been personally tested by

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the author, or are known to be wholesome and beneficial. Discretion has also been exercised in regard to the advertisements included in the book, which have been selected with the view of supplying a convenient vade mecum for the assistance of readers in search of suitable and safe adjuncts to the toilet.

THE VICARAGE, ATCHAM,

        SHREWSBURY,

                Midsummer, 1886.