Mother: You feel warmer, it is true; but, no matter how hot or cold the weather may be, the body has always about the same warmth. I said always, but I mean when we are well. Sometimes we put the wrong kind of fuel into the furnace, and it makes a big fire, the house gets very hot, and we say we have a “fever.” If we get two or three degrees cooler than we should be, that shows that something is wrong, too.
Helen: But what keeps us the same whether it is hot or cold?
“We have a ‘fever.’”
Mother: You know some stoves have dampers to govern the heat. When the body is in danger of becoming too warm, that is, when the body is well, all the little waste-pipes in the covering of our house pour out water so the skin is damp or moist, and if very warm it is wet. We might say we have thousands of little “dampers” to keep the heat just right. As the sweat dries, the body becomes cool; so in summer and in hot climates the people sweat much. In winter and in cold countries they perspire but little, and the tiny waste-pipes close as tightly as they can to keep the cold out and the heat inside.
Percy: But when I had a cold my skin was hot and dry. Why did not the little dampers make me cool, then?
Mother: Because they were clogged so they could not. After a warm foot-bath and a hot lemon drink, you began to sweat and soon became well. If nothing had been done to open the waste-pipes, you might have had a serious illness.
Elmer: Does alcohol make the body warm? I once heard a man say it was so cold that he must take something to keep him from freezing, as he had a long journey before him.
Mother: I am sure he did not know the effect of wine or alcohol or he would not have said that. When first taken, these stimulants drive the blood to the skin, and we feel warmer; but soon the blood goes back, after being chilled, and the whole body becomes colder. No, alcohol in any of its forms will not “keep out the cold,” as people sometimes think. Men in frozen countries endure the cold much better when they take no strong drink of any kind.
Helen: I once read of a party of twenty-six men who lost their way as night came on. It was very, very cold, and they had no way of making a fire. Each man had two blankets and plenty of food and whisky. Their leader told them to let the whisky alone; to eat supper, and then wrap up in their blankets and lie closely together. But only two besides himself did as he said, and, though they were cold, they did not suffer or freeze. The others thought the whisky would keep them warm. Three drank a very little, and they did not freeze. Seven others, who drank more, had their toes and fingers frozen. Six, who drank still more, were so badly frozen that they never got over it. Four, who became drunk, were frozen so that they soon died; and three, who drank so much that they became “dead drunk,” were dead in the morning.