ALTHOUGH obesity is the result of deranged metabolism, it is usually associated with intestinal toxxmia. And this condition results in various deformations of the skin.
Blotches, wrinkles, puffiness, acne, comedones, inelasticity and sagging of theskin and other stigmata of premature age and faulty nutrition develop.
Modern plastic surgery by tightening the skin about the temples may improve the facial architecture but this is only a temporary corrective, requiring a repetition of the operation in a few months or years. It is a palliative remedy at best. Obviously it does not strike at the root of the conditionwhich is a nutritional disorder.
Cosmetics
The chief harm resulting from the use of creams, lotions, ointments and soaps is that they encourage the treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Many beauty specialists and beauty parlors not only obtain money under false pretenses but by treating the results rather than the causes of disease are a party to the postponement of a diagnosis which might otherwise lead to a cure of both disease and its stigmata. Their medicated varnishes and alluring concoctions cover the outer layer of the skin and clog the pores, interfering with proper skin oxidation and drainage. A few proprietary preparations, made up according to the prescriptions of famous skin specialists, have merit in protecting the skin against wind and moisture. But any local remedy which purports to nourish the dermis, the layer immediately under the thin outer layer of the skin, is a fake.
It is regrettable that physicians ignore the aesthetic side of medicine to the extent they do. This indifference is responsible for thousands of quack remedies and methods devised for the treatment of conditions the existence of which is obvious to all but the blind.
It is hoped that medical specialism will win for itself the place that the importance of the subject of aesthetics demands. The reclamation of beauty should be universally based on the correction of nutritional disorders and toxaemias, rather than on the dispensing of pseudo-scientific combinations of drugs.