66 RULES FOR DRESS. 



originate the necessary reaction, which alone renders 

 these safe and proper , when they produce an abiding 

 sense of chillness, however slight in degree, we may 

 rest assured that mischief will inevitably follow at a 

 greater or shorter distance of time. Many young per- 

 sons of both sexes are in the habit of going about in 

 winter and in cold weather with a dress light and 

 airy enough for a northern summer, and they think 

 it manly and becoming to do so ; but those who are 

 not very strongly constituted suffer a severe penalty 

 for their folly. The necessary effect of deficient 

 circulation and vitality in the skin is to throw a dis- 

 proportionate mass of blood inwards ; and when this 

 condition exists, insufficient clothing perpetuates the 

 evil, until internal disease is generated, and health 

 irrecoverably lost. Insufficient clothing not only 

 exposes the wearer to all the risk of sudden changes 

 of temperature, but it is still more dangerous (be- 

 cause in a degree less marked, and therefore less 

 apt to excite attention till the evil be incurred), in 

 that form which, while it is warm enough to guard 

 the body against extreme cold, is inadequate to pre- 

 serving the skin at its natural heat. Many youths, 

 particularly females and those whose occupations 

 are sedentary, pass days, and weeks, and months 

 without ever experiencing the pleasing glow and 

 warmth of a healthy skin, and are habitually com- 

 plaining of chillness of the surface, cold feet, and 

 other symptoms of deficient cutaneous circulation. 

 Their suffering, unfortunately, does not stop here, 

 for the unequal distribution of the blood oppresses 

 the internal organs, and too often, by insensible de- 

 grees, lays the foundation of tubercles in the lungs, 

 and other maladies, which show themselves only 

 when arrived at an incurable stage. Young persons 

 of a consumptive habit will generally be found to 

 complain of this increased sensibility to cold, even 

 before they become subject to those slight catarrhal 

 attacks which are so often the immediate precur- 



