Fig. 5. Warm, dry clothing necessary for health.
Why the body should be equally covered
The body should always be kept at as nearly uniform a temperature as possible. In order to do this we wear clothing. Clothing keeps out the heat on a hot day, just as it keeps the heat in and the cold out on a cold day. The clothing should be equally heavy on all parts of the body. It is not right to wear a thick dress over your chest and leave your shoulders and arms bare, or nearly so. People who do this are killing a great many cells by letting part of their bodies become chilled while the rest is warm, probably too warm.
Why clothing should not be too heavy
The clothing should be just heavy enough to keep the body warm. If you wear such heavy clothing indoors that you are constantly perspiring, your underclothes become damp, and when you go out, even though you put on your overcoat, your body becomes chilled. If you begin to sneeze, that is Nature's way of telling you that you are killing many of your cells by too much cold.
People sometimes get warm from exercising, and then take off their coats. They should have removed their coats before they began to exercise. If you take off your coat after you are too warm, your body becomes chilled. Baseball pitchers know this, and if you watch a good pitcher, you will see that he always puts on his sweater as soon as he stops pitching, even though he is very warm. He knows that if he cools off too quickly, he will become stiff and sore and cannot pitch good ball.
When a draft is dangerous
Sometimes a person sits in a warm room until he begins to perspire freely. Then he opens a window and sits in the draft. Under ordinary conditions, the cool wind alone would chill the body, but now the rapid drying of the perspiration makes the body cool still more quickly. The sudden chill causes the person to take cold, which is simply another way of saying that he has killed many cells and caused others to fall sick, so that they cannot perform their work. We cannot get too much fresh air. Drafts do not hurt us if we are thoroughly wrapped up; but it is very dangerous to allow the wind to strike the body when it is not well protected, and especially when it is damp with perspiration.