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Show TOO MUCH CLOTHING. One of the moit proficient of medical men has declared against the wearing of too much clothing. He says people catch colds that lead to influenza and pneumonia by bundling up and smothering the skin with clothing, and now that the season of influenza is approaching, he offers this advice: The skin is a breathing organ as truly as the "inner lungs;" its billions of biood vessels are forever gasping for air under een the lightest of drapery ano are completely smothered under un-der many folds of clothing; hence the blood is cheated out of its normal supply of oxygen. Oxygen is "the mighty scavenger of the vital economy' and from lack of it the body clogs up with waste, and this is the principal cause of all the filth diseases, including influenza. I have studied the question since the epidemic epi-demic of 1889. Of course wrong eating and overeating are adverse to health, but a stomach-ache or diarrhoea will "cure" itself usually while from skin-smothering there is no relief. Influenza epidemics epidem-ics always occur during unseasonably warm weather in fall, winter win-ter and spring, when the people are dressed in cold-weather clothing. Therefore, keep cool, give the skin air and fear no danger. Winter befor- last, one of the coldest, a soldier was dying of pneumonia on .hipboard; the ship was torpedoed and the pa" tient was rushed out nearly naked into an open boat, where he shivered and shook for hours. When finally they reached shore the patient scoffed at the idea of -going to the hospital, for he said, "I'm all right," and sure enough he was. If there were anything in the notion about catching cold he would have been dead from congestion of the lungs in four minutes. That the skin requires air is not generally known. That the pores ; should be kept fiom clogging by frequent bathing also is not generally i recognized The pores are safety valves that regulate the heat of the (body and their functions are so important that when a certain prcent-; prcent-; age of the surface of the body is destroyed by burns, death follows because be-cause the pores have ceased to do their required work. There is no better treatment for the body than an air bath after a rubdown. The best medicine you can take is fresh air for tht lungs and air for the surface of the body. |
