Q Dear Miss Abigail:
I have a bunch of zits on my forehead that never seem to go away. I use pimple-fighting creams and scrubs but they never go away! What can I do to make them go away? Why won’t they go away in the first place? Is there a cream out there that would actually work for my face?
Signed,
Krystal
A Dear Krystal:
Somehow I am sensing that you would like those zits to go away. This bit of advice about those horrible beasts comes from a recent acquisition written by Professor Jefferis and J. L. Nichols. The complete title is: Search Lights on Health: Light on Dark Corners. A Complete Sexual Science and A Guide to Purity and Physical Manhood. Advice to Maiden, Wife, and Mother. Love, Courtship, and Marriage. And that doesn’t even cover half the book. I love it.
Now back to this pimples thing. Let me just remind you that I am not a doctor, and this is old, old advice, containing many terms that I don’t even know how to pronounce (what is potash, anyway?). So promise me you won’t rub carbolic acid on your face without consulting a dermatologist first. And one other thing ~ FLESH WORMS … eeewww!
1911: How to Cure Pimples or Other Facial Eruptions
1. It requires self-denial to get rid of pimples, for persons troubled with them will persist in eating fat meats and other articles of food calculated to produce them. Avoid the use of rich gravies, or pastry, or anything of the kind in excess. Take all the out-door exercise you can and never indulge in a late supper. Retire at a reasonable hour, and rise early in the morning. Sulphur to purify the blood may be taken three times a week ~ a thimbleful in a glass of milk before breakfast. It takes some time for the sulphur to do its work, therefore persevere in its use till the humors, or pimples, or blotches, disappear. Avoid getting wet while taking the sulphur.
2. Try This Recipe: Wash the face twice a day in warm water, and rub dry with a course towel. Then with a soft towel rub in a lotion made of two ounces of white brandy, one ounce of cologne, and one-half ounce of liquor potassa. Persons subject to skin eruptions should avoid very salty or fat food. A dose of Epsom salts occasionally might prove beneficial.
3. Wash the face in a dilution of carbolic acid, allowing one teaspoon to a pint of water. This is an excellent and purifying lotion, and may be used on the most delicate skins. Be careful about letting this wash get into the eyes.
4. Oil of sweet almonds, one ounce; fluid potash, one drachm. Shake well together, and then add rose water, one ounce; pure water, six ounces. Mix. Rub the pimples or blotches for some minutes with a rough towel, and then dab them with the lotion.
5. Dissolve one ounce of borax, and sponge the face with it every night. When there are insects, rub on flower of sulphur, dry after washing, rub well and wipe dry; use plenty of castile soap.
6. Dilute corrosive sublimate with oil of almonds. A few days’ application will remove them.
Black-Heads and Flesh Worms. This is a minute little creature, scientifically called Demodex folliculorum, hardly visible to the naked eye, with comparatively large fore body, a more slender hind body and eight little stumpy processes that do duty as legs. No specialized head is visible, although of course there is a mouth orifice. These creatures live on the sweat glands or pores of the human face, and owing to the appearance that they give to the infested pores, they are usually known as “black-heads.” It is not at all uncommon to see an otherwise pretty face disfigured by these ugly creatures, although the insects themselves are nearly transparent white. The black appearance is really due to 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. These insects are so lowly organized that it is almost impossible to satisfactorily deal with them, and they sometimes cause the continual festering of the skin which they inhabit.
Remedy. Press them out with a hollow key or with the thumb and fingers, and apply a mixture of sulphur and cream every evening. Wash every morning with the best toilet soap, or wash the face with hot water with a soft flannel at bedtime.
Source: Jefferis, B. G., and J. L. Nichols. Search Lights, or, Light on Dark Corners. Naperville, Ill.: J. L. Nichols & Co., 1911.
~ pp. 111-13 ~