79 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hairs with which it bristles ; but the excitation it produces becomes a 

 therapeutic means whenever the skin needs a stimulant. Unfortu- 

 nately, its use next to the skin may become the source of the infirmi- 

 ties for the cure of which it is indicated when too effeminate an edu- 

 cation has caused us to contract the habit of wearing it too early and 

 without sufficient reason. It may cause a grievous predisposition to 

 colds, rheumatisms, and neuralgias, while, the habit once acquired, it 

 can not be given up without danger. But the use of wool is precious 

 in some countries and under some conditions of life. 



Professor Brocchi, a writer well known for his investigations in 

 malaria, attributes the good health and vigor of the ancient Romans 

 to their habit of wearing coarse woolen clothes ; when they began to 

 disuse them, and to wear lighter goods and silks, they became less 

 vigorous and less able to resist the morbid influence of bad air. It 

 was first at about the time the women began to dress in notably fine 

 tissues that the insalubrity of the Roman air began to be complained 

 of. Dr. Balestra, in his book on the " Hygiene of the City of Rome 

 and of the Campagna," admits that there may be some little truth in 

 these views, although the increasing unhealthfulness of the Roman 

 climate was chiefly explainable by the abandonment of cultivation and 

 the physical degeneracy of the people in consequence of the general 

 change in the manner of living. At any rate, woolen clothing has a 

 right to be considei-ed an excellent prophylactic in countries infected 

 with malaria. " In the English army and navy," says Dr. Balestra, 

 " the soldiers of garrisons in unhealthy places are obliged constantly 

 to wear wool next to the skin, and to cover themselves with sufficient 

 clothing, for protection against paludine fevers, dysentery, cholera, 

 and other diseases." According to Patissier, similar measures have 

 been found efficacious to guard the health of workmen employed on 

 dikes, canals, and ditches, in marshy lands ; while, previous to the 

 employment of these precautions, mortality from fevers was consider- 

 able among them. 



The hygienic properties of wool are due, first, to a slight rough- 

 ness of the surface that excites the functions of the skin ; and, sec- 

 ondly, to its porosity, which, as we have already explained, moderates 

 the expenditure of caloric and prevents a too sudden cooling of the 

 body. Dr. Balestra believes that flannel contributes to the elimination 

 from the body of the paludine miasms, which have been absorbed by 

 the pores, and also to rid it of the deposits that cause rheumatic affec- 

 tions. The hypothesis is confirmed by the singular connection that 

 seems to exist in miasmatic regions between rheumatic and intermit- 

 tent fevers. Furthermore, woolen goods arrest in their down a por- 

 tion of the germs borne in by the air which thus reaches the skin 

 filtered and purified ; Dr. Balestra has proved by direct experiments in 

 marshy regions that thick and hairy woolen garments have the filter- 

 ing power that is here attributed to them. It is hardly necessary to 



