Seven Million Mouths to Feed.
These seven million mouths must be fed daily and hourly. Their food is light and air. Man is not only fed and nourished through the portal of his mouth, but through all the pores of his body, by drawing in nutriment from the surrounding elements, even from the viewless air.
These little mouths also need moisture. This fact is revealed to the senses through the medium of the nerves; for, how grateful to the dry, parched skin, is a bath of cold water! or, if the blood is in a “low state,”—impoverished by disease,—let it be a tepid bath. Let it feel comfortable and grateful to the user. This is a good rule to direct you. The little children love it—love to paddle and splash in it. If they cry and fight against washing, it is usually because of the rudeness of the operator, who, with brawny palm or rough sponge takes the child unawares, nearly suffocating it, and briskly and rudely rubbing over the surface of the tender face, regardless of such small obstructions as nose, chin, and lips, and not unusually dashing a quantity of yellow soap suds into the infantile eyes. The next time the little fellow is requested to be washed, he, remembering the last scouring, naturally objects to a repetition of the unpleasant process.
As the nostrils inhale pure air beneficially, they also exhale impurities. The pores also excrete, or throw off impurities. A healthy skin will throw out, by the pores, from two to three pounds of impure matter every twenty-four hours. To be sure a greater quantity of this impurity is a vapory substance, yet that holds in solution solid particles of corrupt matter, which greatly tend to clog the pores if left to obstruct free perspiration.
Water.
Then, aside from cooling and nourishing the skin and the system through the pores, cleanliness and health demand oft and repeated ablutions of the whole body. In order that the perspiration may be unobstructed, it is absolutely necessary to wash the whole surface of the body in water, and on account of the acid and oily substance collecting on the skin, using a small quantity of alkali, as soap or soda in the water, and thus, by good brisk rubbing, using the hand in preference to a cloth or sponge, thoroughly cleansing the little mouths referred to, else their action is retarded and suspended. This should be done daily during the summer season.
This is a simple process, indispensable to health, and the unwashed can hardly believe what beneficial results follow such a plain course, or know the healthful influence or the comfort derived from a frequent use of pure water.
Those who bathe thus daily seldom take colds. During the winter, in cold climates, weekly or semi-weekly bathing may suffice.
“IT COSTS NOTHING.”