RELATIONS OF THE AIR TO OUR CLOTHING. 663 



The different state of dryness of the air appears thus to be of a 

 greater moment than the difference of temperature, and this is the 

 reason why our sensations do not always coincide with the thermome- 

 ter. You readily understand how much more difficult it is to manage 

 one's heat-household in a hot than in a cold climate. Our means for 

 warming ourselves are better than those for carrying off our heat. 

 Therefore the European race has a hard fight under the equator. 

 The working power of the body depends on a certain amount of con- 

 sumption, by which a certain amount of heat is necessarily created, 

 which has to leave the body in a regular way. The Hindoo who has 

 to draw the European's pankha, bears the heat better in proportion as 

 he takes less food and creates less heat in himself, but then his work- 

 ing-power is also quite proportionate to the total of his consumption. 



The European's struggle in a hot climate and his dangers of de- 

 generacy will remain the same as long as he has no better means of 

 cooling himself by some or all of the known three routes. Houses 

 with thick stone-walls are tolerably efficacious. These walls rarely 

 get warmer than the average temperature of the year. They cool the 

 air which comes into the house, and act on the inmates in the way we 

 have seen when speaking of the room which is not warmed through. 

 A good means would be some contrivance by which the air in the 

 house could be deprived of its water. 



I could not help inflicting upon you this rather long introduction, 

 nor could I possibly abbreviate it, as, without the little knowledge 

 which I have tried to impart to you about the cooling of the human 

 body, you would not be enabled to obtain a proper insight into the 

 functions of our clothing and our dwellings. Therefore I believe my- 

 self to have had a good claim on your patience and indulgence. 



One of man's principal defensive weapons in his struggle for exist- 

 ence is his clothing. The place it takes in the history of civilization 

 and its connection with physiology are not often thought of. People 

 speak about it generally from a moral and aesthetic point of view, but 

 the main purpose of clothing is seldom approached in conversation 

 I mean the purely hygienic one. I deem this to be a misfortune, be- 

 cause this forgetting of the chief point has subjected mankind to the 

 rule of small and frivolous considerations, and the manners and fash- 

 ions of the period get frequently the better of the hygienic fitness of 

 the clothing. Morality and beauty do not depend on dress. They 

 cannot be created or preserved by it. These great qualities could 

 even exist without it, but the human body as it is could not, or only 

 barely and imperfectly, exist in our climate without the protection 

 of clothing, which is more indispensable for our health than for our 

 beauty and morality. 



So manifold are the changes brought about in our system by cloth- 

 ing ourselves, that I am unable to give you more than some incom- 

 plete parts of the subject. 



