350 HEALTH. 



an atmosphere of circumstance around the stomach, which allows our 

 food to do us good, or causes the reverse effect. Health is like the 

 funds, and digestion and indigestion have their daily quotations, if 

 we could but read them. Low anxieties and love of money for its 

 own sake, neglect of the Divine truth, " sufficient unto the day is 

 the evil thereof/' make whole ages dyspeptic; and neglect of the 

 republic of other men than ourselves, creates stoppage in that which 

 should be a unanimous society. Hence the public health of the 

 stomach embraces even these considerations ; and indeed as the lower 

 parts of its duties are fulfilled, these higher ones come out only the 

 more prominently in their claims. 



On our lips, the alimentary tube changes to the skin, and the next 

 realm of public health which we mention, is that which concerns the 

 latter organ. The skin is as exacting upon us as the rest of the 

 body. A polity of healthy skins can be maintained by only the most 

 vast demands upon our industry and sciences. Everything about us 

 must be clean-skinned, or half our personal washing is wasted. The 

 skin leads outwards by forceful channels, and will not be stopped 

 even at great distances, without its emanations recoiling upon the 

 health ; it allures surrounding influences inwards from equal lengths, 

 and will not be deprived of them, or supplied with them in a malig- 

 nant form, without withering, or diseasing, the organization. 



The effects of climate and circumstances upon the skin, are not 

 less remarkable than obvious : for it sympathizes directly with the 

 places and spaces around it, and takes its complexion from them. 

 The inhabitants of the regions of gusty winds have weather-beaten 

 faces, and lines as of the tempests blown howling into their skins. 

 Mountain races have stony or granitic features, as of rocks abandoned 

 to the barren air. The people of moist and marshy places look 

 watery and lymphatic. Those where extremes of temperature pre- 

 vail for long periods, are leathern and shriveled, as though their 

 skins had given up the contest with nature, and died upon their 

 faces. And so forth. These events show how much the skin is 

 influenced by the circumstances about it. 



It is equally certain that the surfaces of the body, represented by 

 the skin, are the medium of contagion, which is the railway of the 

 public disease. For this organ, which compasses all our parts 



