soaked in rose-water and applied with pads of cotton; or, if the face
is too red, it may be blanched by the root of the cyclamen (_panis
porcinus_, sowbread) dried in an oven and powdered. A wealth of
remedies for freckles, moles, warts, wrinkles, discolorations and
other facial blemishes, with foul breath and fetidity of the armpits,
is carefully recorded, and would suffice to establish the fortune of
any of our modern specialists in female beauty. Finally a long chapter
entitled "_De sophisticatione vulvae_" introduces us to a phase of
decoration and sophistication which I would fain believe little known
or studied in the development of modern civilization, in which we are
prone at least to follow the advice of Hamlet, to

"Assume a virtue, if you have it not."

At all events, we may congratulate ourselves that the details of these
disgusting cess-pools of medical art have disappeared entirely
from the pages of our modern text-books. Even Gilbert considers it
advisable to preface this gruesome chapter with a sort of "_Caveat
emptor_" apology to the reader:

"_Ut tamen secundum ordinem procedamus, in primis cognosactur
cognoscere desiderantibus, ne dolus dolo patrocinetur, vel simplex
dolose muscipula claudatur._"

[Footnote 6: This apparent anachronism carries us back to the history
of the mythical Island of Brazil, which appeared upon our charts as
late as the middle of the 19th century.]

In the department of neurology Gilbert, after a philosophical
discussion of the nature and variety of pain, devotes considerable