It has been said that the persons who seek cosmetic surgery are likely to be dissatisfied with any result short of perfection, and that they submit to operation after operation, falling more and more into the net of the unprincipled surgeon, if they happen to have begun their quest for beauty with an advertising quack. The great campaign of education about quackery carried on for many years has resulted in the development of new methods of advertising by the unprincipled surgical impresario. He is far too shrewd to indulge himself in purchased advertising space in newspapers or periodicals. He, therefore, secures a publicity agent who is as likely as not to be a reporter on some local newspaper, willing to eke out a narrow income by playing both ends against the middle. This enterprising journalist takes payment from the beauty surgeon for securing space for him in the daily press, and submits to his newspaper news items regarding weird operations performed by the beauty surgeon on actors, pugilists and other notorious persons. The result is to bring a flood of less notable but equally simple kitchen mechanics, stenographers, elderly housewives and other shallow-minded searchers for beauty into the net. RUBBER “REDUCERS” ARE FOES OF COMFORT BUT NOT OF FAT In the craze for reduction which agitated most of the women of the United States during the past few years, many of them undertook all sorts of exercises, diets and the use of all kinds of apparatus to remove what they considered superfluous weight. Among the most widely advertised articles were corsets and brassières, made of pure gum rubber, which were supposed to be worn next to the skin. It was perhaps the notion of those who promoted these devices that they would squeeze the flesh into a more solid form, perhaps causing the body to eliminate the superfluous matter from inside. There is not, of course, the slightest scientific reason to believe that such apparatus could do anything of the kind. The chief effect of wearing rubber garments next to the skin is that they prevent perspiration from evaporating. Since the perspiration is rubbed into the skin, it is likely to produce irritation. Some persons have severe irritation of the skin from contact with the rubber itself. The rubber garment does not increase the sweat, but simply causes it to remain on the surface. Certainly it does not cleanse the skin, but rather tends to make it accumulate deposits of waste products. The sweat regulates the temperature of the body by evaporation from the surface. It also keeps the skin soft by keeping it moist and well lubricated. Rubber garments prevent evaporation of the sweat, which produces laceration of the skin. Certainly they cannot in any way aid the lubrication of the skin, since retention of salts and other substances is likely to make it drier and to cover it with crusts. BE CAREFUL IN USE OF LAXATIVE GUMS