ten find themselves involved. Such I mean to say was
her natural physical condition, when uninfluenced by any considerable
practical errors.

And yet I had not been many months one of her more intimate
acquaintances, ere her face--hitherto so smooth and transparent--became
as rough and congested as any drunkard's face ever was, only the
eruption was more minute. It was what the common opinion of that region
would have called a rash. It came on suddenly, was visible for a short
time, and then gradually disappeared, leaving, in some instances, a
branny substance, consisting of a desquamation of the cuticle.

When the eruption had once fairly disappeared, her skin was as smooth as
ever. Then again, however, in a little time, its roughness would return,
to an extent which, to young ladies, is usually quite annoying. Young
men, in general, are not so much disturbed by a little roughness of the
skin, as the young of the other sex.

My particular acquaintance with her habits and annoyances continued as
many as four or five years. During this period there were several
ebbings and flowings of this tide of eruptive disease. My curiosity,
towards the end of this period, was so much excited that I sought and
obtained of her an opportunity for conversation on the subject. The
result was as curious as it was, to me, unexpected. It appeared, in the
sequel, that she understood, perfectly well, the whole matter, and held
the control of her cutaneous system in her own hands, nearly as much as
if she had been a mere piece of mechanism. She had not sought for
medical advice, because she knew the true method of cure for her
complaints as well as anybody could have told her.

In truth, she cured it about once a year, simply by omitting the cause
which produced it. This she had found out was butter, salted butter, of
course, eaten with her meals. She had somehow discovered that this
article of food was the real cause of her disease, and that entire
abstemiousness in this particular, would, in a reasonable time, remove
it.

I inquired why, after a long period of abstinence from butter, she ever
returned to its use. Her reply was that she was too fond of it to omit
it entirely and forever. She preferred to use it till the eruption began
to be quite troublesome, which was sometimes many weeks; then abstain
from it till she recovered, and then return to it. This gave her an
opportunity to use it from one-third to one-half of the time; and th