The lips, or rather the lip, for it is to the lower lip that disease is generally confined, is subject to several affections such as inflammation and enlargement, ulceration, chapping, and excoriation—all in themselves trivial and harmless—and is only subject to one, and fortunately rare disease of any serious moment—cancer. Leaving this for the present out of consideration, all the others may be regarded as symptomatic of the state of the stomach, or else are caused by direct irritation from contact with jagged teeth. The most prevalent form of sore lips is that of deep cracks or fissures, that on the first stretch of the cuticle bleed; in persons of a scorbutic habit, instead of cracking, the skin peels off in scales, leaving a raw, irritable, and painful abrasion, aggravated by heat or moisture, and which sometimes continues for weeks; both of these conditions are dependent on the state of the system, and can always be cured in a few hours, or in the worst case in two or three days, by a dose or two of aperient medicine, such as a dose of blue pill, and a spoonful of Epsom salts some hours after, repeating both for two or three times, should the obstinacy of the case require it. When inflammation and swelling of the lip takes place, as it sometimes does, from the presence of a broken tooth, keeping up a constant irritation from the sharp edge pressing on, or coming in contact with, the soft part, the spicule should be at once filed down, or else the tooth withdrawn, for while the exciting cause remains, no means will afford relief. This having been done, a cold lotion of sal-ammoniac, vinegar, and water applied by means of wetted pledgets of rag, will speedily reduce the swelling, when a pill and a draught, such as have been already ordered, will insure a permanent recovery of the part to health. The lip in all cases should be kept as dry as possible, and especially from the saliva and the tongue; and as all such cases are symptomatic of the state of the system, their own permanent cure is, as we have shown, by an aperient medicine. An excellent application is a little tallow rubbed in by the finger before going to bed, the tallow having the advantage over all other grease, in not becoming rancid.