In this case it will be noted that the skin disease occurred simultaneously with a marked improvement in health.  This shows that Nature was adopting her usual plan of forcing the impurities outwards to the surface and that the change of diet made this possible.  With her body less encumbered with waste a return of health became possible.

 The plan now to adopt is not to check this skin trouble but to cure it
 along safe lines by amending the diet and purifying the skin itself by
 means of warm alkaline baths.

These baths, which should be taken twice a week at first, are made by adding a 1/4lb. of bicarbonate of soda and a 1/4lb. of “Robin” starch to an ordinary hot bath at a temperature of 105 degrees, which can be gradually increased to 110 degrees as the correspondent can bear it.  In this the bather stays for from ten to twenty minutes to well soak out the acids and the oily greasy waste from the surface.  The starch is added because it moderates the action of the alkali and leaves a comfortable gloss on the skin after the bath is finished.  The bath gradually clears the poisons from the skin and encourages the free action of perspiration, thus promoting the further elimination of waste acid poisons and at the same time clearing the skin and making it healthy.

The next thing to do is to amend the diet so that as little waste as possible shall be formed.  Rice is the cereal that contains the least amount of waste of any kind and this should therefore be the cereal selected.  The wholemeal, although good for most people, is not suited to this case.  A strict salt-free diet is also necessary, as it is often the retention of salt in the system that leads to the presence of eczema.  The following amended diet should suit the case, and it should be continued until the skin has quite cleared itself:—­

 On rising.—­Cup of filtered boiled rain-water.

 Breakfast.—­Cottage cheese, 2 oz.; rice, boiled or steamed without
 salt (large plateful), with Granose biscuits or toasted “Maltweat”
 bread.

 At 11 A.M.—­More rain-water (not fruit).

 Lunch.—­The same as breakfast.

 Tea.—­Hot rain-water only.

 Supper, 6.30.—­The same as breakfast.

When the skin is quite clear the correspondent can return to the wholemeal bread (but biscuits made with “Artox” would be better than the yeastless bread), and also to a more varied diet generally, as at present.

 DEAFNESS.

J.G. writes:—­My hearing got bad about twenty years ago, caused I think by a cold in the head.  When in bed I can hear the tick of a watch with the left ear but the other is almost stone deaf.  I am not much at a loss in ordinary conversation, but in trying to hear people speak I lose much of what is said.  Although I have no real pain, my head is rarely