XXVII.—Clothing, Air Baths, Wearing Stays, etc.
Mr. Priessnitz expects all his patients to leave off wearing flannel or cotton next to the body; he maintains that by keeping up too much heat, they weaken the skin, which then is less efficient in performing its offices, and in consequence people become delicate and diseased.
A patient coming out of the bath, on being prevented putting on his flannel waistcoat and drawers, said, “Tell Mr. Priessnitz, they and I having been intimately acquainted for twenty years, I hardly like parting with them so abruptly.” His reply was, “They are false friends; in a short time your skin will regain the proper tone which they deprived it of, when you will be warmer without flannel than ever you were with it.” Priessnitz does not preach one doctrine and practise another—he wears nothing under his linen. Some patients of a slow circulation, on commencing the treatment, are ordered to wear their flannel waistcoats over their linen for a few days: the want of it is not felt. It might naturally be supposed, that leaving off flannel of a sudden, especially in cold weather, would be attended with serious consequences; but this is never the case in the Water-cure. Invalids frequently arrive at Gräfenberg in the depth of winter, and after the bath, invariably leave off flannel. Of the number of cases that came under my observation, I never knew a single instance of a party catching cold. After the bath, the patient is expected to keep up a brisk walk for some time. In winter, it would be as well, after leaving off flannel, to clothe warmer than usual for a day or two.
Wearing flannel waistcoats in bed of a night is greatly debilitating. An almost universal prejudice exists in favour of flannel in cases of gout and rheumatism; hence the question arises, “Does it prevent or cure those complaints?” Certainly not; for where do you see their victims without flannel? Experience proves, that it neither protects the wearer from disease, nor allays pain.
Nightcaps destroy the hair, cause its premature decay, and have an injurious tendency to those troubled with congestion in the head, head-aches, etc.; such people cannot have their bedrooms too cold. There is much sense in the old adage—“Keep the head cold, and the feet warm.” Previously to sleeping without a nightcap, and washing my head every morning with cold water, I was constantly tormented with cold in the head, from which I am now perfectly free. Perhaps, in some measure, I am indebted to my last visit to Gräfenberg for this happy change, having passed a whole winter there without wearing either hat or neck-cloth, or making any change from my summer clothing, although the thermometer was frequently 12° to 14° Reaumur below zero.
The constant use of oils and pomatums to the hair, unless the head is often washed, closes the pores, and is prejudicial.
With respect to the clothing, Priessnitz advises “when in an open carriage, or sitting still, the body should be well clothed; when in exercise, as lightly covered as possible.”
One half the cases of consumption in females may be traced to the wearing of stays, and lacing them too tight. All artists agree, that stays in growing people destroy, rather than improve, the figure. Bound up in whalebone, they lose that graceful undulation of the back which is so pleasing. Every one who has seen the Venus de Medicis, Canova’s Venus, or any other faithful copy of nature, must consider a very small waist a defect.
Stays, at best, are unwholesome, as they keep up an unnatural heat about the body; and when laced too tight, are sure to be attended with serious consequences. I have known several young ladies, whose teeth were destroyed, whose breaths were intolerable, and who were consigned to a premature grave, entirely from tight lacing. To have health, the greatest of all blessings, the complicated machinery inside our bodies must have room for action (the intestinal canal, for instance, is half as thick as a man’s arm, and sixty or seventy yards long); contract this space, you contract the vessels, and irregularity of the functions ensues. This is an offence against nature, which sooner or later she will repay with misery and pain.
Dr. Abernethy advised air baths, that is, the habit of exposing the body naked to the air, which may be done with impunity after the cold bath, but not otherwise. In winter, instead of increasing the amount of clothing, Priessnitz advises exercise; for, in proportion as the body is warmly clothed, and the air excluded, the less warmth is produced by the body itself; resistance to cold causes the body to bring forth its own energies and powers. There can be no doubt the feet are much warmer, and that it is much healthier, to go without stockings; it necessitates washing the feet oftener, which, if done in cold water, tends to bring warmth to them. The Turks owe much of their health to their habit of washing their feet. Before going to Gräfenberg, people destitute of shoes and stockings excited my pity; but since that time, my opinion is changed: let such persons be well fed, but for health keep their feet bare. The following extracts from Liebig support Priessnitz’s opinion:—
“Our clothing is merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food. The more we are clothed, the less urgent becomes the appetite for food; because the loss of heat by cooling, and consequently the amount of heat to be supplied by the food, is diminished.
“If we were to go naked, like certain savage tribes; or if in hunting or fishing, we were exposed to the same degree of cold as the Samoyedes, we should be able with ease to consume ten pounds of flesh, and perhaps a dozen of tallow candles into the bargain, daily; as warm-clad travellers have related with astonishment of those people.”
“The Englishman, in Jamaica, feels with regret the disappearance of his appetite, previously a source of frequently recurring enjoyment. And he succeeds by the use of cayenne pepper and the most powerful stimulants, in enabling himself to take as much food as he was accustomed to eat at home. But the whole of the carbon thus introduced into the system is not consumed; the temperature of the air is too high, and the oppressive heat does not allow him to increase the number of respirations by active exercise, and thus to proportion the waste to the amount of food taken; disease of some kind, therefore, ensues.”
“The cooling of the body, by whatever cause it may be produced, increases the amount of food necessary, the mere exposure to the open air, in a carriage or on the deck of a ship, by increasing radiation and evaporation, increases the loss of heat and compels us to eat more than usual. The same is true of those who are accustomed to drink large quantities of water, which is given off at a temperature of the body 98°. It increases the appetite; and persons of weak constitution find it necessary, by continued exercise, to supply to the system the oxygen required to restore the heat abstracted by the cold water. Loud and long continued speaking, the crying of infants, and moist air, all exert a decided and appreciable influence on the amount of food which is taken.”—Liebig.
“No isolated fact,” says Dr. Johnson, “can contravene the law that the quantity of food is regulated by the number of respirations, by the temperature of the air, and by the amount of heat given off to the surrounding medium, as for instance by frequent bathing. Of course it is a matter of indifference whether that medium be cold air or cold water.”
As a healthy naked body generates by heightened perspiration of the skin, the same warmth as is produced by one which is covered, by means of retaining the perspiration; so every one who is quite well, might by use become so hardened, that during the coldest season he might feel, when naked, as comfortable as any one covered with wool. The truth of this was verified by two English gentlemen, the winter I spent at Gräfenberg. One day in December, when the thermometer was at 6°, of Reaumur, below zero, they proceeded to a mountain, took off all their clothes, except their drawers, and proceeded to the top, where, though the wind was blowing strong at the time, they remained two hours. They stated that after they had walked briskly, or got up the steam for ten minutes, a glow of heat came on, which counteracting the cold, produced the most agreeable sensation. Neither of these gentlemen caught cold or suffered in any way from this experiment.
The Scotch Highlander with his naked legs, does not feel colder, surrounded by mountains of ice, than we do who are clothed. We prove this by our bare faces in the coldest winter.
As the skin performs the double function, of drawing nourishment from the air, and exhaling the phlogisticised air of the diseased matter and worn-out atoms of the body, it follows that the true art of curing, must be to endeavour to restore these two functions. Hydropathy causes the ejection of diseased matter and revives the activity of the skin.
Dr. Johnson observes, “Discomforts are the necessary whips and spurs which keep the living energies awake; whilst comforts operate upon us like opiates: since to acquire a ‘comfort’ is only to remove a discomfort; and to remove what keeps us awake, is the same thing as to administer what will send us to sleep. The indulgences, therefore, wherewith even young and healthy men indulge themselves; the ‘comforts,’ as they call them, of flannel, warm clothing, closed doors, carpeted rooms, soft beds, hot food, are infinitely worse than absurd; because the opposites of all these luxuries, so far from being injurious to health, are absolutely necessary to it. We actually kill ourselves with comforts.”