CARE OF THE FEET.
[To THIC EDETOM or ass •• NFFCTAT011:1 Sit,—It has occurred to me that my experience, derived from about thirty years of mountain walking and climbing, relative to the treatment of the feet may be of use to some, especially as such experience was early directed by Swiss guides, who served as soldiers also once a year. Soaping the feel and socks is bad ! Soap, to act as a lubricant, must be moistened with water, and this softens the skin. Further, if there be any abrasion, the alkali of the seep acts as an irritant. Rubbing the feet with coarse, cheap schnapps or methylated spirit is always good as a preliminary treatment, inasmuch as this hardens the skin. The feet must then be greased before the socks are drawn on ; and more grease may be plastered over the sock so liberally that it is felt to reach the akin at any especially sensitive place, such as the heel. I have often entirely checked incipient abrasion by taking off my boot and applying grease liberally over the suspected spot. The grease used must be saltless and hard when cold. Lard or vaseline soon disappears. A week's supply of this hard grease may be kept in a tooth- powder box with a deep lid, in the pocket if the weather Lee cold, in the knapsack in warmer weather. I now use anhydrous lanoline, which is cheap and stiff. No doubt it could be combined with advantage with some fine, non-gritty boracie powder. But hard tallow (e.g.) does just as well, this becoming soft enough for application when the box is kept in an inner pocket. It is hardly worth while speaking of the use of the filmy .'svreat.abeorbing " socks (price l(d. a pair) used in Germany and Austria, for they could not well be obtained now. "Spirits and pure hard grease," and on no account soap, that is the secret that I learned as far back as
the "eighties."-1 am, Sir, &a., W. L.
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