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POPULAR science review. 
mischiefs than any which lead to the access of fresh air are 
produced. It is in such cases as this that we see the folly of 
attempting to remedy one set of evils without knowing what 
may follow from another. Fresh air, however necessary to 
life, is death to those who are clothed insufficiently. This 
should he especially recollected with regard to little children, 
whose tender frames are far less able to endure cold than 
those of grown-up persons. Yet they are excluded from fresh 
air, and the greatest carelessness is displayed in dressing 
them. Directly a 'baby leaves off its long clothes it is in 
danger of being underclothed. This danger is increased when 
it can run alone, and it is exposed to the outside air, with 
an amount of destitution of garments for its lower extremities, 
which, if it occurred in grown-up persons, would at once 
suggest the necessity of further clothing for the sake of 
warmth. If the idea, then, can once be comprehended that 
children of tender years are more susceptible of cold than 
grown-up persons, a very different kind of dressing would take 
place, and a holocaust of victims at the shrine of inflammation 
of the lungs would be saved. 
I need hardly enter here upon the importance of changing 
and cleaning clothes. At the same time, this is a subject that 
demands more attention than it has yet received. The habit 
of wearing dark-coloured clothes instead of light-coloured 
ones, has its origin in economical considerations, and it would 
be well to consider whether an amount of dirt is not thus 
tolerated, which may go far to the spread and production of 
disease. Dark-coloured clothes after they are worn a little 
time become dirty, and are as objectionable as light-coloured 
clothes under the same circumstances, although the dirt 
cannot be seen. 
But I must leave all other abuses of dress, to consider 
evils of a wider extent. To heap more clothes on the back 
than is necessary, is a great evil in both sexes. One of the 
dangers of too much dress is that, unless it is adjusted so as 
to press equally and bear directly upon the pelvis — the chief 
centre of support of the body — it is likely to produce defor- 
mity. Heavy coats, shirts, or body dresses of any kind, may 
have their weight thrown too much before or behind, or on 
one side, and produce deformity. The evil is one to which 
man is much less exposed than woman. To obtain an ample 
surface on which to display the beautiful fabrics of cotton and 
of silk, which have been expressly manufactured for her in 
patterns of the most wonderful variety and in colours of sur- 
passing beauty and harmony, she has submitted to an enlarge- 
ment of the skirts of her dress, which, by its weight, endangers 
the symmetry of her frame ; and by its extending beyond the 
reach of her control, runs the risk of perils which exposes her 
