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CHAPTER XXXII.

CLOTHING IN ITS RELATION TO HEALTH.

UR province is not to speak more than incidentally, as we have already availed ourselves of the opportunity of doing, of clothing from the point of view of dress. It is simply to speak of clothing as a protective, healthful, and agreeable covering of the body.

To enable us to exercise, in the particulars mentioned, sound judgment with reference to the choice of clothing for different purposes, we should know certain fundamental facts regarding the behavior of the ordinary substances that, as fibres, are converted into clothing. This knowledge, coupled with appreciation of the fact that clothes do not, of themselves, make warmth or coolness, but are serviceable in cold weather to retain the heat that the body generates, and in hot weather to exclude the greater exterior as compared with the interior temperature, is sufficient, with one addition, to enable any one to understand the philosophy of clothing. That addition is, that it should be remembered that at all times the body transpires, or gives off moisture through its pores, and that this circumstance cannot be ignored in the selection of the material out of which the clothing is made.

As it is the heat of the body which is to be preserved, if we wish to be warm, or the excessive outside heat which is to be excluded, if we wish to be cool, the best fabric for both purposes must be that which is made of some substance that is relatively non-conducting to heat. Additionally, although we wish to retain or to exclude heat, the mesh of the fabric must always be adapted to allowing to pass through it the evaporation of the moisture from the skin. Hence, a suit of leather, such as knights

used to wear under their armor, must have been unhealthy. It was good as a non-conductor of heat, and had a certain degree of porosity, but not sufficient to make desirable clothing for the whole person.

Linen is not a good fabric for underwear, even in a hot climate, because linen is a good conductor of heat, presenting conditions just the opposite of those that are best suited for the purposes of clothing, those which are secured by materials that are bad conductors. Linen, besides, readily absorbs the moisture of the body, which circumstance still further promotes the loss of bodily heat in a cold climate, or, in a warm climate, facilitates the passage inward of the excessive outside heat. This objectionableness of linen for underclothing, inherent in the physical constitution of the substance itself, we can obviate, when desirable, by wearing a garment under the linen composed of a material that is a bad conductor; but then, it will be ob served, the linen has ceased to be an undergarment. With nothing but a single thickness of linen next the skin, a sudden drop of the outside temperature will cause a chill to strike to the very marrow. This is because the heat of the body passes readily through the slight opposition of the fabric, so good is it as a conductor of heat. We once tried to wear linen shirts in very hot weather, but found them, in alternations of temperature, far from agreeable.

On the contrary, nothing is more delightful for hot weather than are linen sheets. Here, the quality of linen in being a good conductor of heat serves well the heat-oppressed sleeper, conducting, as it does, the heat so rapidly from the surface of the body as to make radiation back to it inappreciable. Besides, the fibre of linen is round and smooth, rendering fabrics made of it singularly agreeable to the touch when coolness is desirable. An analogous though opposite gratification to that afforded from touching or seeing good blankets in the

winter-time is experienced from seeing and feeling linen sheets in the summer.

Taking it for all in all, wool is the best fabric for wear next the skin. But this cannot be said without the qualification that much depends upon the quality of the wool. We have a lively recollection of a terribly cold walk that we once took, with snow on the ground, through the open country, when, coming to a wayside store, it occurred to us to buy a pair of long, coarse, woolen stockings for protection from the severe cold. Such was the exacerbation to the skin from the rude material of the stockings, that by nightfall our legs were covered from ankle to knee with a profuse eruption, which subsided at once as soon as the active cause of the irritation was removed.

In heat-retaining and excluding merits, the common materials for clothing rank as follows,-woolen, cotton, silk. We have said sufficient on the score of linen. For outside garments, whether for men or women, it is admirable for hot weather. It is much used for dresses by men and women of tropical climates, the fine-linen market of Cuba being one of the best in the world.

Cotton is the most generally agreeable wear for undergarments, if not in immediate contact with the skin; at least, next to the garment which is in immediate contact with it. Our own opinion is that no climate is so hot that the health is not the better for wearing a woolen garment next to the skin. This, in tropical countries, should, of course, be of the texture that is known as gauze-merino. Cotton does not absorb moisture so readily as linen does, and, after all that we have said, it is hardly needful to remark that it is much warmer than linen. For socks or stockings it has, under certain conditions of their use, singular unfitness. To become footsore on a long pedestrian tour, one could not devise a better plan than to use cotton socks or stockings. That very peculiarity of the substance of which we just spoke, that it does not absorb moisture so readily as linen does,

should be expanded here into the fullness of the fact that it absorbs moisture very reluctantly. The consequence of this is, that the great exudation from the feet while exercising is largely retained, the sock or stocking, drying, becomes in places on the foot a hard, uncompromising mass, and the next thing one finds himself footsore. The proper footgear to walk long distances in, no matter how hot the weather, is woolen stockings, or merino ones, made of soft material.

Silken underwear is, for some skins, and in some conditions of health, the most delightful possible. It is a bad conductor, and therefore makes a good clothing for persons who do not come within certain categories of skin and health conditions. The question of whether individuals do or do not can be settled only by their personal trial, or by the opinion of a physician, guided by a full history of the case. In gouty and rheumatic affections, supposing that there is no contra-indication to the wearing of silk, the electrical condition that it excites in the skin is beneficial to persons predisposed to these affections. But this same electrical excitation of the skin is prejudicial in the case of cutaneous disorders. We knew a case, some years ago, where a tendency to rheumatic gout had been sensibly abated by the wearing of a complete suit of silk underclothing, when some years afterward an attack of senile prurigo in the same person was stimulated and heightened by continuing to wear the very garments that had proved so beneficial in counteracting the rheumatic-gouty tendency.

Of course color has much to do with the warmth of garments. Whenever there are heat and cold and light (and that, excepting with reference to light, is always), the color of garments enters into the determination of their qualities with reference to temperature. Taking an obvious case, if we should have a white woolen coat dyed black, it would become warmer, because, as black, the material would absorb more heat.

It would also, because absorbing heat rapidly, rapidly radiate it; but, on the whole, it would be warmer than the white coat, at least as long as it was subjected to light, and to heat greater than that generated by the body. If, in continuous exposure to the weather, say in tent-life in the winter, a man should wear a black coat by day, and a white coat of the same fabric, weight, and make by night, he would best utilize heat-outer heat by absorption; inner heat, or heat of the body, by its conservation. This is only stating in terms of illustration the preceding fact.

In our climate, the very best course to pursue with regard to change of clothing, to accord with change of outside temperature, is to have at least two, or even three, grades of thicknesses of underclothing, for spring, autumn, and winter wear, the thicker of which will sometimes find a place even in a sudden lowering of temperature in summer weather, and temporarily supersede the gauze drawers and undervest of that season.

At no season of the year should we be without some fabric, not muslin or linen, immediately next to the skin, and from what has been said, this fabric ought to be woolen, merino, or even silk, under the limitations mentioned. If this fabric performed no other function than that of absorbing and slowly liberating the moisture from the body, the practice of wearing it would be amply rewarded. If people would but remember that the aim of health should be to guard against the vicissitudes of weather, and to maintain equableness in the temperature of the surface of the body, there would be less sickness and death from colds, and a much larger aggregate of pleasure in the world. The gratification of the whim of a moment often leads a girl to an exposure to cold that costs her her life. A fall of twenty or thirty degrees in the thermometer, or a sudden chilliness of the air, should mean to sensible people the adoption of instant precautions to avoid cold.

The unthinking portion of the world goes much more by the