CLOTHING AND ITS RELATION TO HEALTH
Having considered thus briefly the matter of food and its relation to health, the question of clothing and personal hygiene now rises for attention. Besides serving for covering and adornment and guarding the body from injury, the use of clothing is to help in preserving the proper animal heat in spite of external changes. In health the normal temperature of the body, ninety-eight to ninety-nine degrees Fahrenheit, is invariable. In order that this temperature shall be maintained with the least strain on the vitality, the clothing should be such that heat is not readily conducted to or from the body.
Cotton and linen keep off the direct rays of the sun and favor the loss of heat from the body, but being bad absorbers of moisture they are apt to interfere with evaporation from the skin, and cause dangerous chills. Linen and cotton are good conductors of heat, especially the former, and do not readily absorb moisture. Silk and wool are bad conductors. Wool has also a remarkable power of so completely absorbing moisture that it feels dry when cotton or linen would be wet and cold. Its value as a non-conductor, retaining internal heat and excluding external heat, is shown by the fact that we wrap ice in blankets to keep it from melting, and cover teapots with woolen “cosies” to keep them from getting cold. These qualities together render it the most perfect material for clothing under all conceivable circumstances.
The young and the old, the rheumatic, all persons liable to colds or weak in lungs, or who have suffered from kidney diseases, those who are exposed to great heat or cold or are engaged in laborious exercises, ought to wear woolen next to the skin and, indeed, everyone would be better for doing so. Rheumatic persons and those liable to cold feet will find it a great luxury to sleep in blankets in winter instead of sheets, and young children who are apt to get uncovered at night should wear flannel night-gowns next the skin in the winter and over cotton ones in the summer.
The color of clothing is a matter of little importance in the shade, but in the sun the best reflectors are coolest, such as white and light grays, while blue and black are the worst, absorbing the most heat. Dark colors also absorb odors more than light colors do. Indeed, for every-day use light-colored garments of whatever material, provided it can be washed, are to be recommended, though dark colors are too often preferred because they do not show the dirt. What woman would like to wear a cotton waist and skirt six months without washing? Yet it would not be half so dirty as the more absorbent dark woolen dress that she would wear as long without a scruple.
Beds and bedding are likewise elements of importance in the general health, although not always sufficiently considered. Soft, and especially feather, beds are weakening. The harder a bed, consistent with comfort, the better. Good hair mattresses are the most wholesome. Coverings should be light, porous enough to carry off the evaporations from the body, and yet bad conductors of heat. Most blankets are too heavy, and thick cotton counterpanes are heavy without being warm. Flannel night-dresses are much preferred to cotton at all times, both for comfort and for health. Warmer in winter, they obviate the chill of the cold sheets; while in summer they prevent the more dangerous chill when in the early morning hours the external temperature falls, when the production of internal heat in the body is at its lowest ebb and the skin perhaps bathed in perspiration—a chill which otherwise can be avoided only by an unnecessary amount of bed clothes.