is sufficient in ordinary cases; carbonate of potash or soda is too alkaline for the skin.  Every application removes a portion of the cuticle, as you may observe by the smoothness of the skin of your hands after washing them with it.  Borax is recommended; but this is also soda combined with a weak acid, boracic acid, and may by protracted use also injuriously act on the scalp.  Soap is also soda or potash combined with the weak, fatty acids; and when the soap contains an excess of the alkalies or is sharp, it is as injurious as the carbonate of potash.  All that injures the scalp injures the growth of the hair.  One of the best applications from the vegetable kingdom is the mucilaginous decoction of the root of the burdock, called bardane in French (botanical name, Lappa Minor).  In the mineral kingdom the best remedy is a solution of flowers of sulphur in water, which may be made by the addition of a very small portion of sulphide of potassium, say ten or twenty grains to the pint.  This solution is shaken up with the sulphur, and the clear liquid remaining on the top is used.  This recipe is founded on the fact that sulphur is a poison for inferior vegetable or animal growth, like dandruff, itch, etc., and is not at all a poison for the superior animal like man.

HOW TO CURE DIPHTHERIA.—­A French physician expresses his preference for lemon juice, as a local application in diphtheria, to chlorate of potash, nitrate of silver, perchloride of lime water.  He uses it by dipping a little plug of cottonwood, twisted around a wire, in the juice, and pressing it against the diseased surface four or five times daily.

HOW TO CURE BAD BREATH.—­Bad or foul breath will be removed by taking a teaspoonful of the following mixture after each meal:  One ounce liquor of potassa, one ounce chloride of soda, one and one-half ounces phosphate of soda, and three ounces of water.

2.  Chlorate of potash, three drachms; rose-water, four ounces.  Dose, a tablespoonful four or five times daily.

HOW TO CURE BUNIONS.—­A bunion is a swelling on the ball of the great toe, and is the result of pressure and irritation by friction.  The treatment for corns applies also to bunions; but in consequence of the greater extension of the disease, the cure is more tedious.  When a bunion is forming it may be stopped by poulticing and carefully opening it with a lancet.

HOW TO CURE BURNS AND SCALDS.—­Take half a pound of powdered alum, dissolve it in a quart of water; bathe the burn or scald with a linen rag, wetted with this mixture, then bind the wet rag on it with a strip of linen, and moisten the bandage with the alum water frequently, without removing it during two or three days.

TEA LEAVES FOR BURNS.—­Dr. Searles, of Warsaw, Wis., reports the immediate relief from pain in severe burns and scalds by the application of a poultice of tea leaves.