106 CLOTHING, ITS USES AND ABUSES. 



duces mental derangement; and the directors of asylums for the 

 insane have found, oy experience, that regular and early hours are 

 essential to the improvement of their patients; and they require all 

 their balls and parties to close punctually at ten o'clock, p. M. In 

 this respect the insanity of fashion might well ( be placed under a 

 like wise and judicious direction. 



One hour of sleep in the early night is worth two at its end or 

 in the day, for all the purposes of health and strength. If our 

 ladies understood, what is undoubtedly the fact, that all their 

 " beauty sleep " must be gained before twelve p. M., there would prob- 

 ably be fewer devotees of fashion among them. The faded, wan 

 and prematurely old women of society owe the earlier wreck of 

 their once splendid charms more largely to irregular and untimely 

 hours than perhaps to all other causes combined. 



CLOTHING, ITS USES AND ABUSES. 



The adoption of artificial clothing by man, serves three pu. 

 poses the regulation of the temperature of the body ; protection 

 from friction, insects and dirt; and ornament. In this climate 

 clothing is chiefly employed for warmth, which purpose it secures 

 by moderating or restraining the escape of heat from the body. 

 Articles of clothing have no power in themselves of generating heat, 

 and are designated as warm or cool just in proportion as they 

 restrain or favor the escape of heat. Thus, a lady's muff and a 

 marble floor are ordinarily of the same temperature; but the sensa- 

 tion produced by each is widely different, because the animal heat 

 is retained by the muff, and rapidly carried off by the marble. 

 Hence, for clothing we select those substances which least conduct 

 heat, such as the wool of sheep and the silk produced by silkworms, 

 which are superior, as non-conductors, to cotton or linen. In this 

 country we have recourse chiefly to the former in winter, and to the 

 latter in summer, cotton and linen garments being coolest; linen 

 cooler than cotton. 



In-door Clothing There are several practical errors on the 

 subject of clothing, committed perhaps by a majority of persons, to 

 which we may brieflv direct attention. " The, first and most obvi- 

 ous of these, says tne celebrated Dr. Blaikie, " is wearing too much 

 clothing in-doors or in bed, thereby both exhausting the natural 

 powers of the skin, and exposing its action to a sudden check on 

 going out into the cold air. This forms one of the principal objec- 

 tions to the almost universal use of flannel, worn next the skin, and 

 kept on even during the night, as is the practice with many per- 

 jons. The skin is thus unnaturally excited, and in course oJ time 

 loses its natural action ; or, on the other hand, becomes so sensitive 

 48 to have its action checked on the slightest exposure." " 1 never 

 ise anything else," the same physician informs us, " than a light 



