210 PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 



CHAPTER IX. 



Clothing needed to prevent excessive Radiation of Heat. Parts 

 usually clothed need more Protection than others. Habit of 

 Dressing affects the Necessity. No positive Law for the Amount 

 of Clothing. 



517. THE skin is thus shown to perform three offices. It 

 carries off much of the waste of the system, by means of 

 perspiration, oil, and carbonic acid. It absorbs some mat- 

 ters from the atmosphere and other contiguous substances. 

 It regulates the transfer of heat from within outward, and 

 prevents its coming inward from without. 



518. It is a natural question to ask, whether the skin can 

 do this alone, or does it require our aid to enable it to per- 

 form these functions faithfully and successfully? We are 

 so much the creatures of habit, we have been so accustomed, 

 through many years, and even from generation to generation, 

 to cover the body with clothing, that it is not easy to tell 

 how great a degree of cold could be borne upon the naked 

 surface. As it is, there are not many days, even in summer, 

 when we should feel as comfortable as we now do, if those 

 parts of the body which have always been clothed were left 

 unprotected. 



519. Certain it is that the heat is constantly prepared 

 within the animal system ; and it is equally evident that, 

 when' the body is warmed to its natural and usual degree of 

 98, the excess beyond that must pass off. As much is then 

 to be thrown out as is added, and this is done mostly through 

 the skin. But it is not so certain that the skin could, un- 

 aided by clothing, regulate this transmission of heat so ex- 

 actly that the internal temperature would not vary from its 

 usual standard. Whatever the natural protective power of 

 the outer surface might have done, if we and our fathers had 

 from the beginning, lived in a state of nature, there can be 

 no doubt that we and all civilized men, in temperate and 



