'To preserve the skin in health': drainage, bodily control and the visual definition of healthy skin 1835-1900.

The concept of a healthy skin penetrated the lives of many people in late-nineteenth-century Britain. Popular writings on skin and soap advertisements are significant for pointing to the notions of the skin as a symbolic surface: a visual moral ideal. Popular health publications reveal how much contemporary understanding of skin defined and connected ideas of cleanliness and the visual ideals of the healthy body in Victorian Britain. Characterised as a 'sanitary commissioner' of the body, skin represented the organ of drainage for body and society. The importance of keeping the skin clean and purging it of waste materials such as sweat and dirt resonated in a Britain that embraced city sanitation developments, female beauty practices, racial identities and moral reform. By focusing on the popular work by British surgeon and dermatologist Erasmus Wilson (1809-84), this article offers a history of skin through the lens of the sanitary movement and developments in the struggle for control over healthy skin still in place today.

[Scabies and syphilis--aspects of treatments of skin- and venereal diseases at Copenhagen Kommunehospital 1863 - 92]. / Fnat og syfilis--aspekter af behandling af hud-og kønssygdomme på Københavns Kommunehospital 1863-92.

Scabies and syphilis was very common but social unaccepted diseases in the later part of the 19th century. In 1892, 1,210 patients with syphilis and 106 children suffering from scabies were treated at the Kommunehospital in Copenhagen. Case records from patients admitted March 19th and September 19th, form the study basis of different aspects of scabies and syphilis treatment in the period. In the mid 19th century different soap treatments were the common cure for scabies. In the 1880s the cure became napthollinement, powdering with flour followed by rapping the patient in a sheet. Throughout the whole period experiments with medicine and thereby the patients was the norm. The treatment of syphilis consisted of different forms of mercury cures combined with bathes. Admission time was long and the patient was rarely cured. Progress in the treatments of both diseases was made in the daily work with patients. Access to knowledge, economy, the effort of the physician and the relationship between the different professions and groups in the hospital influenced and formed the process.

Cosmetics and skin care products. A historical perspective.

The history of cosmetics and skin care products parallels many important technologic developments in chemistry, materials, and packaging innovations. Much is revealed about ancient civilizations by the cosmetics that are uncovered in archaeologic excavations. Much can also be said about modern-day health and adornment practices based on products in the current marketplace.