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Sanitary Rhyme.

259

PRECAUTIONARY HINTS ON THE THREATENED APPROACH

OF CHOLERA.

The Skin.

There's a skin without and a skin within,

A covering skin and a lining skin;

But the skin within is the skin without

Doubled inwards, and carried completely throughout.

The palate, the nostrils, the windpipe, and throat
Are all of them lined with this inner coat;
Which through every part is made to extend-
Lungs, liver, and bowels, from end to end.

The outside skin is a marvellous plan

For exuding the dregs of the flesh of man;

While the inner extracts from the food and the air
What is needed the waste in his flesh to repair.

While it goes well with the outside skin
You may feel pretty sure all's right within ;
For if anything puts the inner skin out
Of order it troubles the skin without.

The Doctor, you know, examines your tongue
To see if your stomach or bowels are wrong;
If he feels that your hand is hot and dry,
He is able to tell you the reason why.

Too much brandy, whiskey, or gin
Is apt to disorder the skin within ;
While, if dirty or dry, the skin without
Refuses to let the sweat come out.

Good people all! have a care of your skin,
Both that without and that within;

To the first you'll give plenty of water and soap,
To the last little else beside water, we'll hope.

But always be very particular where
You get your water, your food, and your air;
For if these be tainted, or render'd impure,
It will have its effect on your blood-be sure!

The food which will ever for you be the best
Is that you like most, and can soonest digest;
All unripe fruit and decaying flesh
Beware of, and fish that is not very fresh.

Your water, transparent and pure as you thinkit,
Had better be filter'd and boil'd ere you drink it,
Unless you know surely that nothing unsound
Can have got to it over or under the ground.

But of all things the most I would have you beware
Of breathing the poison of once breathed air;
When in bed, whether out or at home you may be,
Always open your window, and let it go free.

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With clothing and exercise keep yourself warm,
And change your clothes quickly if drench'd in a storm;
For a cold caught by chilling the outside skin
Flies at once to the delicate lining within.

All you who thus kindly take care of your skin,
And attend to its wants without and within,
Need never of Cholera feel any fears,

And your skin may last you a hundred years!

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Clothing. The raw materials from which clothing is made should be light, bad conductors of heat, porous, and durable. Weight for weight, wool is much superior to cotton, and linen is not equal to calico, with respect to porosity and heat retention. The texture of woollen cloths can hardly be too fine. A flannel shirt, though perhaps not so pleasant to wear as a soft cotton one, is more healthy; for in winter it keeps the body warmer, and in summer it absorbs the perspiration. The Bradford and Hull woollen manufacturers might make a finer and thinner fabric, adapted for inner garments. A mixture of cotton and wool might be found a good shirting material. In only one respect are cotton and linen superior to wool, and that is, they do not shrink so much under the action of soap and water. India-rubber clothing prevents the escape of perspiration, and should only be worn during severe weather, and even then not habitually. Coats made from this material should be very wide, and provided with ventilating gussets. No other material is so well adapted for keeping out wet and wind, and its lightness renders it superior to leather, which is so excellent a protection against the influence of rainy and tempestuous weather. The use of india-rubber overalls is not per mitted, on hygienic grounds, in the French army, and they are proscribed amongst the London postmen. Furs are very bad conductors of heat, and are therefore highly prized as clothes in cold and temperate climates.

During infancy and childhood nature is less able to resist exterpal influences, therefore young people should be more warmly clad than adults. No greater mistake can be committed than that of allowing the limbs of tender infants to be bared to the piercing blasts of winter, from the absurd notion that the exposure "hardens" them. I have often thought that the mother's heart must be "hardened" too, when she could look, unmoved, on the poor little shivering specimens of humanity, returning, with pinched features and purple limbs, from their miserable walk. Is it not almost incredible that parents will insist on exposing their children, half-naked, to a temperature which they shrink from encountering themselves, unless when well protected with warm clothing? Scotch soldiers who wear the garb of the Highlanders suffer much from rheumatism, owing to the exposure of their legs to the air; and it is probable that the tendency to this disease, which is now so general amongst all classes of society, is, to some

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Tight Lacing.

261

extent, the result of defective clothing.

extra clothing.

Aged persons require

Men's clothing at the present time is more natural than women's apparel. Their tall hat is a warm covering, but it is unsightly, and prevents evaporation from the head. Shoes, as a general rule, are worn too tight, and as a necessary consequence, almost every one is troubled with corns, bunions, "irregular toe-nails," or overlapping and disjointed toes. I fear the feet of many beautiful but fashionable ladies would not bear to be investigated from an æsthetical point of view. In order to preserve the natural form of the feet, boots should have low and broad heels, wide toes, and be neither too large nor too small. The inner line of the shoe or boot should be perfectly straight. The high-heeled boots now so generally worn by ladies have a tendency to produce atrophy (or wasting) of the muscles of the leg, whilst they cause those of the ankles to become thickened-results not at all to be desired. Hard

leather often produces corns. Patent leather prevents the evaporation of moisture from the feet, and is liable to produce tenderness of the skin and other disorders of the feet. In the act of walking the foot expands from one-sixteenth to the one-tenth of its length, and its lateral expansion is even greater. The measure of the foot should therefore be taken when the weight of the body rests upon it. In winter, both sexes should only use boots provided with thick soles.

Females are often insufficiently clothed. In winter, the gossamer-like ball-room costume, which leaves the most vital regions of the body exposed, is the cause of many maladies. The excessively small bonnets now worn answer very well in summer, but during cold weather they afford very little protection to the head and neck, and are probably a common cause of neuralgia and of rheumatism. Heavy ornaments on the head are injurious; and the prevalent fashion of wearing enormous pads of false hair, to augment the natural size of the chignon, is objectionable for several reasons. Stays laced tightly are most dangerous in the case of girls not fully grown, because the pressure prevents the proper development of the chest, and indeed seriously modifies the anatomy of the whole trunk. The compression of the waist contracts the volume of the lower part of the lungs; the diaphragm, or membrane that separates the chest from the stomach, is pushed up higher into the chest, the shoulder blades are forced back upon the spine, and the size of the stomach is diminished. The results of these serious malformations are diminished breathing power and impaired digestion. The German physiologist, Soemmering, has enumerated no fewer than ninety-two diseases resulting from tight lacing. The practice of tight lacing is not nearly so prevalent now as formerly; probably because it has been discovered that an excessively small waist is unnatural and unbeautiful. The Greek and Roman women wore their clothes suspended from the shoulders; but in modern times nearly the whole weight of the

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apparel of females is sustained by a girdle placed round the waist. The modern method is, on physiological grounds, inferior to the classic mode. It causes great pressure to be applied to the muscles of the chest, the back, and the stomach, by which their development is seriously impeded, and their healthy action greatly interfered with. This malpractice-of wearing the clothes in such a way as to cause a constant pressure upon the body-produces, in a large number of cases, the most serious structural alterations in most of the important internal organs.

CHAPTER XXIV.

FOOD AND DIETARIES.

The commercial value and the nutritive value of foods are very different things. A shilling's worth of one kind of food may contain more actual nutriment than is present in a pound's worth of another variety. High-priced foods owe their value to the superiority of their flavour, and, but to a less extent, to their rarity. Amongst the ordinary foods of the people there are, however, considerable variations in their nutritive properties; and chemists and physiologists are endeavouring to determine which are the animal and vegetable substances that yield the largest amount of digestible nutriment at the smallest cost. The solution of this problem is hampered with many difficulties. We may, of course, analyse the different foods, and ascertain which of them contain the greatest quantities of albuminous matters, fats, and other alimental principles; but until we know whether or not these ingredients are capable of being assimilated, the mere percentages of albuminoids and carbo-hydrates in foods do not strictly represent their actual nutrimental value. One mode of estimating the value of food consists in determining the amount of heat which it gives off when burned. Heat is the equivalent of motive power; and, therefore, the food which evolves the most heat is best capable of supplying animal heat and motive power. It must, however, be borne in mind that unless food is completely digested and utilized in the animal economy, its full thermotic, or heat-producing power will not be rendered available. Cellulose is contained in vegetable foods, but it is indigestible; therefore, although it produces a large amount of heat when burned outside of the body, it cannot be got to burn within it. Again, the albuminous constituents of food are not, under any circumstances, completely exhausted of their force, or latent heat and energy, in the body; for, having been thoroughly digested, and their elements in new combinations ejected from the system, these latter still are capable of being burned. Corrections can, however, be applied in the

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Nutritive Values of Foods.

263

force-producing power. foods by analysing them, and determining their heat-giving and rent foods is by no means limited, we are enabled to make a tolerably accurate estimate of the absolute and relative values of digestibility of the albuminoids, fats, and carbo-hydrates in diffecase of the albuminoids; and as our knowledge of the relative

chemical composition of the more important foods, according to The following table, constructed by Dr. Letheby, exhibits the

the most recent analyses:

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