Another reason for bathing is to wash disease germs from the body. Most dirt has disease germs in it. Disease germs also float in the dust of the air and stick to our skin when we go into a dusty room. If our skin is dirty, some of the germs may be carried into our flesh when our skin is pricked, or scratched, or cut. We sometimes catch boils, or erysipelas, or lockjaw, from very little wounds in a dirty skin. Cleanliness of our skin helps to keep us from catching diseases.
131. Cold baths.—Sometimes we bathe when we are clean so as to get refreshed. If we bathe in cold water, we feel cold at first. In a little while we feel warm again. Then we feel stronger, and refreshed for work. If we stay in the bath too long, we become cold again and feel weak. When boys go in swimming, they ought to come out before they begin to feel cold.
It is a good plan to take a cold bath every morning when you get up, even if you use only a wash-bowl with a little water. It will take only a few minutes, but will keep you clean and make you feel more like doing your day's work.
132. A fair skin.—We must wash often, to make the skin fair and smooth. Use enough good soap to keep the skin clean.
If you eat as you should, and digest the food well, your skin will have the least amount of waste to give off. Then it will look well. A bad looking skin is due to bad food and to bad digestion. If you do not digest your food well, you cannot have a fair skin.
Face paint and powder make the skin look worse, for they hinder perspiration. Nothing of that sort will do the skin any good. You must eat as you should, and you must keep clean. Then your skin will be clear.
133. Washing clothes.—Our clothes rub off a great deal of the perspiration and waste. They become soiled. A great deal of dirt also gets upon the sheets of our beds. Our clothes need to be washed as well as our bodies when they are soiled. Air and the sun as well as water destroy the waste of the body. Our clothes need to be aired at night, and the bed and bedroom should be aired through the day.
134. Slops.—After water has been used to wash our body or our clothes it is dirty and is not fit to be used again. It must not be thrown where it can run into a well. If a person has typhoid fever or cholera or other catching disease, the water may carry germs of the disease to the well, and so other persons may get it. Slops from the house should not be poured out at the back door, but they should be carried away from the house. In cities the slops are poured into large pipes and tunnels underground. These pipes are called sewers. They empty outside the city.
135. Alcohol and the skin.—Alcohol interferes with digestion and causes biliousness. This makes the skin rough and pimply. A drinker seldom has a clear skin.
Alcohol causes the arteries of the face to become enlarged. Then the face is red. A red nose is one of the signs of drinking. When a person uses strong drink he is often uncleanly. He does not care for the bad looks of his clothes and skin, and so he lets them stay dirty. This harms the skin and makes it look bad. The dirt also poisons the skin and may itself be a cause of sickness.