Thread: La pogonotomie ou l'art d'apprendre a se raser soi-meme

Haha old indeed! On the first page, the index "talks" about observations on the "saignée" - bloodletting in English! It is also written in old french but I could very well help with that project... can't really invest a lot of energy into it due to a medical condition but here's what the first page says:

"Pogonotomy or the art of learning how to shave yourself with:

- How to learn types of stones to sharpen all tools and instruments
- How to prepare strop to repair/resharpen razors / How to make good ones (Strops!)

PREFACE

It is, trembling, that I get into this career, where a lot of craftsmen/erudites distinguish themselves; there would be a bit of recklessness in calling myself an author in a century that is as "lightened" as this one (reference to siècle des Lumières / french revolution in the 17-18th centuries) if I didn't have the confidence to give new and useful observations on an Art that I became familiar with, out of habit and that my reflections made me perfect. You shouldn't try to find a pompous discourse in this work: my only goal is to be useful. I'm only looking to express myself in the most clearful way: that is my only ambition. Jealous to get knowledge from the human genre, I will find all that my long experience teached me in an Art that it will always need.

iv
I will start by showing men, the easiest and safest ways to do that mandatory operation with dexterity, exception made of certain particular nations who, jealous of antique customs, think that shaving their entire beard degrades the male "prestige". It is surprising that with the countless number of books that are honoring our literature and all of the universe, that we can't find a simple brochure that teaches the Man, the principles to start early in his youth, to do an operation that he will have to repeat multiples time in a week. You will tell me, maybe, that there are public barbers for ones and valets for others, I know, but what are their drawbacks? How many people by the means of rasors and soaps that were used to shave sick people with scurf patches, pimples and deadly diseases and that made cruel ravages?

It is impossible, even for a handy barber to shave a man with scurf patches and has a face filled with pimples, without cutting them. At this moment, pus sticks not only to the razor & the steel's pores but also on the brush, on the barber's hands, on the soap, in the water and the towel. All the tools you used becomes depositories of particules and will "communicate" dirtiness, unpleasant & shameful illnesses to whom will have the bad fate of getting shaved by the same hand & instruments. Regretfully, not only one man can get infected: even the towel that everybody uses will be enough to contaminate people shaved during that day. What an accident for healthy people with good skin and blood to take such risks! Do you think I don't have any example as to what I'm saying? The fact is sadly too evident.
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