Letters to Persons Who Are Engaged in Domestic Service

by Catharine Esther Beecher

If you could look at the skin through a microscope, you would see the little mouths of the blood-vessels all over the skin, which are constantly pouring out this useless matter from the blood. If, in a warm day, you bring a cool mirror near your skin, yet not so as to touch it, you will see a thin dew, or vapour, settle on the mirror. This is the invisible exhalation, which is constantly coming out from the mouths of the small blood-vessels, all over the skin. Experiments have often been made, to find out how much matter is thus thrown out of the body by the skin, and it is found that in a grown person, it is never less than a pound and a quarter in twenty-four hours, and most men that have

experimented say that it is much more. But all agree, that the skin throws out more of the useless and noxious matter from the body, than the lungs, bladder and bowels all together.

You can now understand the evil done by sitting with wet feet, or going into cold and damp air without proper covering. Cold always operates to make the skin shrink up, and the little mouths of the blood-vessels are thus closed, so that the skin cannot perform its office properly. In consequence of this, the blood is not relieved of its noxious matter. The effect of this, is sometimes one thing, and sometimes another. Sometimes, stopping the action of the skin produces a fever, and then the body is tormented with restlessness, pain and heat. Sometimes, when the skin stops its labours, the other organs try to do double duty, to relieve the body. In this case, either the bowels or bladder become affected and discharge profusely, or the lungs accumulate a great quantity of this useless matter, which is coughed up in the form of phlegm. Sometimes the head and throat are affected, and water runs from the eyes and nose, while the lungs also cough up phlegm.

What is commonly called a cold in the head, or a cold on the lungs, is caused by the shutting up of the blood-vessels of the skin by cold, so that the lungs, eyes, and head are obliged to perform a part of the offices that the skin ordinarily performs.

Now when a person is labouring by a fire, or at washing or ironing, the blood is made to circulate much faster, and the noxious matter is thrown out more abundantly. At such times the matter thrown out by the skin becomes visible in the form of drops of sweat. Of course the more of this matter is to be thrown out by the skin, the more dangerous it is to have the openings of the skin shrunk up by cold. Therefore, it is very important for persons who labour, to take very great care not to allow themselves to be chilled when in a state of perspiration. Wetting the feet often produces the same effect on the body, as chilling the skin in a perspiration. You understand now, why it is that I earnestly entreat you, never to go out and stand in the cold, when you are in a perspiration, and always to be careful to dress warm whenever you go out doors for any

purpose, and never to sit with damp feet. One single act of carelessness in these respects, may bring on a fever, or a bowel complaint, or an affection of the lungs, or liver, or eyes, or head, that may lay you up for months, or even end your life. What I have told you about the construction of the skin, shows the importance of another piece of advice I would give you. Do you know, that we are almost the only well informed nation in the world, that do not frequently wash the body all over? There were some nations in old times, that knew that this was so important to health and comfort, that they always had public baths made, so that rich and poor might bathe every day without expense. And in many countries, the best informed people would not think of going two days without washing the whole of their bodies, any more than you would think of going so long, without washing your face and hands. And the reason of this is, that the skin is interrupted in its duties by any accumulation of matter upon it. The little mouths of the blood-vessels must be kept open and free, or they cannot fully perform their offices. Now, as the

skin throws out at least a pound and a half a day, of this useless and noxious matter, where the clothing comes tight to the skin, it cannot all pass off freely, and a part is deposited on the skin. This ought to be washed off every day, or else the skin has its pores to some extent filled up, and its duties are impeded. In consequence of this, humours on the skin, or in the eyes, or some affection of the head, or lungs, or liver, or bowels, or some other part of the body, often ensue. Some people have such strong constitutions, that they can bear to go all their lives, and never wash their bodies properly, and yet never seem to experience any injury, but there is no doubt that many are suffering painful and troublesome affections, that never would have come upon them, if they had taken proper care of their skin. For this reason I advise you to keep a bowl and pitcher of water in your room, and to sponge your body all over when you go to bed, either in lukewarm or cold water. It will not take you more than ten minutes, and it may save you from much trouble.

I have told you, that the lungs also are

employed to help purify the blood. It is done in this way. The air we breathe is made so, that when it comes into the lungs, it combines with the noxious portions of the blood in the lungs, and then is returned again, when we breathe out the air. If, therefore, a person is shut up in a small, close room for a long time, the air of the room, after a while, is filled with this injurious matter which is sent out of the lungs. In this state it is unfit to breathe. Breathing it sometimes produces drowsiness, weakness, stupidity of feelings, and sometimes sickness at the stomach, or fainting. Indeed, there is no suffering so horrible as that produced by breathing air, which is entirely made of air breathed from the lungs. To illustrate this, I will mention a case of some gentlemen, who were once shut up by a cruel tyrant in a very small room, with a very little window in it. There were so many that they had not room to lie down or even sit, and in a few hours, so many breaths had filled the room entirely, with this noxious vapor. The distress thus produced was horrible. They groaned and screamed for mercy to the guard of soldiers. They begged them to shoot them and

put an end to their torments. At length they began to fight, to get at the only opening there was for air, and struggled and fought for breath, and tried to strangle each other, till all were dead except the few, who could get their faces near the window; and these in the morning had not strength to stand, and looked more like corpses than like living men.