An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially need a vigorous treatment of the skin.
Professor Dunglison says,—"The best clothing to protect us from external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over them when they expose themselves to the sun.
Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the vicissitudes of weather."
Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool."
Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and drains.
Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his flannels.
A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of flannel.
Dr. Willich says,—"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the covering of those animals most resembling man in structure."
Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness.
The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous, those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all invalids.