CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



within him ; and food may be said to supplement 

 clothing, and clothing food. If we lose heat 

 through lack of clothing, the food must supply it ; 

 and vice versd. 2. The young and vigorous, other 

 things being equal, require less clothing than the 

 old and infirm. While the respiration and cir- 

 culation of the system is vigorous, and the diet 

 wholesome and full, every function is performed 

 with activity ; heat is freely formed ; and the 

 exercise generally taken by the young greatly 

 augments the supply. But the young and vigorous 

 must not neglect the ordinary rules of clothing on 

 this account a neglect they are but too apt to 

 perpetrate, and which, in the case of infancy, is 

 too often perpetrated against them by ignorant 

 nurses, and equally ignorant and foolish mammas. 

 ' Are the little " Highlanders,"' asks Dr Erasmus 

 Wilson, ' whom we meet during three out of the 

 four quarters of the year under the guardianship 

 of their nursery-maids, dawdling about the streets 

 in our public walks or squares, properly protected 

 from the cold? Are the fantastically attired 

 children whom we see "taking an airing" in 

 carriages in our parks, sufficiently and properly 

 clad ? If these questions can be truly answered 

 in the affirmative, then, and then only, my re- 

 marks are needless. There can enter into the 

 parent mind no more baneful idea than that of 

 rendering children "hardy" by exposing them 

 unnecessarily to cold, and by clothing them in- 

 efficiently. The little denizens of a warm nur- 

 sery must not be subjected, without a carefully 

 assorted covering, to the piercing and relent- 

 less east or north-east wind ; they must not be 

 permitted to imbibe the seeds of that dreadful 

 scourge of this climate consumption in their 

 walks for exercise and health ; they must be 

 tended, as the future lords of the earth, with 

 jealous care and judicious zeal. One-sixth of the 

 deaths of young children, it must be remembered, 

 result from cold! ' The large mortality,' says 

 another medical authority, ' among the children 

 of the poor is to be referred to an undue exposure 

 of their feebly acting and sensitive surfaces to the 

 influence of the cold.' It by no means follows, 

 however, from what has been said, that the systems 

 of the young are to be overheated, relaxed, and 

 enfeebled by an excessive amount of clothing, an 

 amount disproportioned to the requirements of 

 health and growth. 



As to special articles of dress, and the clothing 

 of special parts of the body, there is often inju- 

 dicious management, partly from mistaken physiol- 

 ogical notions, and partly from caprice and fashion. 

 Thus there is nothing more common than to dress 

 heavily when we go out of doors, and put on 

 some thin flimsy covering within doors ; to clothe 

 well during one portion of the day, and be in 

 loose, open, undress during another. Such sudden 

 changes are contrary to all reason, and cannot 

 fail to be prejudicial to sound health and comfort. 

 The human body is not a piece of mechanism, 

 which can be wound up and adjusted at pleasure ; 

 and far less is it to be tampered with in direct 

 opposition to the natural laws under which it is 

 constituted. What more preposterous than to 

 dress heavily when under the warming influence 

 of exercise, and to dress loosely and lightly when 

 sedentary, and, when all the functions of circula- 

 tion and respiration are languid and slow ! 

 Another error, very common in this country, is 



788 



the inordinate wrapping of the neck and shoulders 

 with kerchiefs, shawls, and furs. To behold men 

 and women, old and young, all be-muffled and 

 be-boa'd, no matter what the day or what the 

 occasion, a stranger would be apt to imagine the 

 country labouring under one huge epidemic ; and 

 yet the truth might be some absurdity of fashion 

 some monkey imitation of A by B, C, D, and 

 all the other letters of the alphabet. 'Unless 

 when much or unusually exposed to the influence 

 of cold,' says a high medical authority, ' the risk 

 of local relaxation from this practice, and of an 

 unadvisable degree of chill when such extra cloth- 

 ing is removed, deserve consideration, and may 

 lead to greater evils than such extra wrapping is 

 calculated to obviate. It is only justifiable under 

 circumstances of extreme and long-continued ex- 

 posure to cold, or in the instance of very delicate 

 and susceptible systems.' 



Another instance in which very irrational and 

 often fatal errors are committed, is in not duly 

 protecting the feet. 'Of all parts of the body,' 

 says the same authority, 'there is not one the 

 clothing of which ought to be so carefully attended 

 to as the feet. The most dependent part of the 

 system, this is the part in which the circulation 

 of the blood may be the most readily checked ; the 

 part most exposed to cold and wet, or to direct 

 contact with good conducting surfaces, it is the 

 part of the system where such a check is most 

 likely to take place. Coldness of the feet is a 

 very common attendant on a disordered state of 

 the stomach ; and yet disordered stomach is not 

 more apt to produce coldness of feet, than cold- 

 ness of feet is apt to produce disorder of the 

 stomach ; and this remark does not apply only 

 to cases of indigestion, but to many other disorders 

 to which man is liable. Yet do we see the feet 

 of the young and delicate clad in thin-soled shoes 

 and as thin stockings; no matter whether the 

 weather is dry or damp, or whether the tem- 

 perature of the atmosphere is warm or cold. But 

 this is not the whole of the evil. These same feet 

 are frequently, at different times of the day, differ- 

 ently covered as to stoutness of the shoes and 

 their soles, and very often likewise as to the thick- 

 ness of the stockings. ... I am sufficient of a 

 Goth to wish to see thin-soled shoes altogether 

 disused as articles of dress ; and I would have 

 them replaced by shoes having a moderate thick- 

 ness of sole, with a thin layer of cork or felt placed 

 within the shoe, over the sole, or next to the foot 

 Cork is a very bad conductor of heat, and is there- 

 fore to be preferred. Its extreme lightness, the 

 remarkable thinness to which it may be cut, its 

 usefulness as a non-conductor not being greatly 

 impaired thereby, and the inappreciable effect it 

 has on the appearance of the shoe, all seem to 

 recommend its use for this purpose in the strongest 

 manner.' 



Among the special instances of error as to the 

 amount of clothing, the writer just quoted place 

 pre-eminently that of bed-clothes. In Brits" 

 where a great variety of material is used suet 

 as feathers, down, hair, woollen blankets, cotton 

 counterpanes, and linen sheets this subject is 

 deserving of more attention than it generally 

 receives ; and all the more seeing that while in 

 bed the skin usually throws off much more of its 

 secretions than at other times. What is required 

 is a mere sufficiency to keep the surface warm 



