358 Human Physiology. 



later breaks down the power of his stimulated brain and ner- 

 vous system, and is always liable to neuralgia, dyspepsia, and a 

 train of dispiriting and painful diseases. 



Insufficient clothing, and the lack of comfortable shelter 

 from the inclemencies of climate, are frequent causes of dis- 

 ease. A cold week in winter raises the mortality of London 

 hundreds above the average. In a church or chapel crowded 

 with poor, in winter, one can scarcely hear the preacher for the 

 coughing. Bronchitis, and inflammations of the lungs, or its 

 lining membrane, carry off great numbers. Children die of 

 croup, hooping cough, and congestive diseases. Then cold 

 makes people huddle together and shut out the air, so that, if 

 they do not perish of chill, they are weakened and rilled with 

 impurities for lack of ventilation. Cleanliness is neglected for 

 a similar reason. The skin is clogged with dirt, and its horny 

 surface is less sensitive to cold but its functions are sus- 

 pended, and the body thereby diseased. A "cold" is the 

 suspension of the action of the skin, and a thereby increased 

 and disordered action of the mucous membrane. And so 

 poverty, in its lack of the necessaries and comforts of life, 

 is a very serious cause of disease, which disease intensifies 

 poverty and its miseries. 



In the higher classes, or better classes, as they are termed, 

 dress is often a cause of disease. Fashion demands that the 

 upper portion of the female body the arms and a large part 

 of the bust, which are carefully covered by day, should be as 

 carefully uncovered at night, whatever may be the weather. 

 And if thick shoes and stockings are worn in the morning, 

 they must give place to thin ones at night. Waists are com- 

 pressed by corsets into the form of wasp or hour-glass, to the 

 serious detriment of lungs and heart, stomach and liver. It is. 

 not wonderful that women, otherwise in the most favourable 

 conditions for health, should sometimes catch colds, have 

 coughs, glide into consumption, and fall a prey to a train 



