Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 10.djvu/212

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

to keep cold out as to keep heat in. The mistake is often made, of taking great care to put on extra wraps and coats when preparing for out-door exercise. This is not at all necessary in robust persons. Sufficient heat to prevent all risk of chill is generated in the body by exercise. The care should be taken to retain sufficient clothing after exercise, and when at rest, to prevent the heat passing out of the body. Indeed, persons very often catch chills from throwing off extra clothing after exercise, or from sitting about in garments, the material of which is not adapted to prevent the radiation of heat from the body. Linen and cotton under-clothing, when moistened by perspiration, parts with heat very rapidly, whereas flannel and silk, being non-conductors, prevent the rapid loss of heat.

4. The most recent offense against the laws of health is the habit of wearing false hair. The perspiration of the scalp is prevented, by the thick covering, from evaporating, thereby causing a sodden and weakened condition of the skin, which predisposes to baldness and other diseases of the scalp. Again, it produces headache and confusion of the intellectual faculties. We all know what a relief it is, during hard mental work, simply to raise one's hair by running the fingers through it. I should think literary ladies either do not wear false hair, or take it off when at work.

5. Ablution is another subject of paramount importance to health. Mr. Urquhart, the introducer of the Turkish bath into this country, is one of the benefactors of the age, and it is to be hoped some day there will be a bath in every town and village in England. Doctors are very much to be blamed for allowing themselves to be prejudiced against it. The usual opinion given by medical men to their patients is, that it is debilitating, and only to be borne by the robust. The reverse is really the case: it is stimulating and strengthening, it is a preventive as well as curative in disease. The effect of the Turkish bath on the skin is to cause an active condition of its functions of elimination, by removing the hardened epithelial scales, by removing the fat from the pores, and by causing the sweat-glands to maintain the activity of their functions, giving a general stimulus to the vital power of the skin. Again, it keeps the body in a state of perfect cleanliness, which is so essential to robust health; but these are not its only virtues—it promotes purity of mind and morals. The man who is accustomed to be physically clean shrinks instinctively from all contact with uncleanliness.

6. There are, however, certain precautions to be observed in the use of the baths. Persons who are apoplectic, or suffering from fatty degeneration of heart, should not venture to disturb the circulation by the excitement of baths. The first effect of Turkish baths is to stimulate the circulation, the second to cause active congestion of the skin, the third to produce profuse perspiration, the fourth to keep down the temperature of the body by rapid evaporation. On leaving the