Popular Education. Ira Mayhew
is approved by physiologists generally: breakfast at 7 o'clock, dinner at half past 12, and tea at 6. Luncheons and late suppers should be avoided; for the former will always be found to interfere with the healthful performance of the function of digestion, and the latter will induce restlessness, unpleasant dreams, and pain in the head. "A late supper," says the author of the Philosophy of Health, "generally occasions deranged and disturbed sleep; there is an effort on the part of the nerves to be quiet, while the burdened stomach makes an effort to call them into action, and between these two contending efforts there is disturbance—a sort of gastric riot—during the whole night. This disturbance has sometimes terminated in a fit of apoplexy and in death."
The Skin.—This membranous covering, which is spread over the surface of the body to shield the parts beneath, serves also as an excreting and secreting organ. By the great supply of blood which it receives, it is admirably fitted for this purpose. The whole animal system, as we have seen, is in a state of transition, decay and renovation constantly succeeding each other. While the stomach and alimentary canal take in new materials, the skin forms one of the principal outlets by which particles that are useless to the system are thrown out of the body. Every one knows that the skin perspires, and that checked perspiration is a powerful cause of disease and death; but few have any just notion of the extent and influence of this exhalation. When the body is overheated by exercise, a copious sweat breaks out, which, by evaporation, carries off the excess of heat, and produces an agreeable feeling of coolness and refreshment. The sagacity of Franklin led him to the first discovery of the use of perspiration in reducing the heat of the body, and to point out the analogy subsisting between this process and that of the evaporation of water from a rough porous surface, so constantly resorted to in the East and West Indies, and in other warm countries, as an efficacious means of reducing the temperature of the air in rooms, and of wine and other drinks, much below that of the surrounding atmosphere. This is the higher and more obvious degree of the function of exhalation. But in the ordinary state of the system, the skin is constantly giving out a large quantity of waste materials by what is called insensible perspiration; a process which is of great importance to the preservation of health, and which is called insensible, because the exhalation, being in the form of vapor, and carried off by the surrounding air, is invisible to the eye. But its presence may often be made manifest, even to the sight, by the near approach of a dry cool mirror, on the surface of which it will soon be condensed so as to become visible. It is this which causes so copious deposits upon the windows of a crowded school-room in cold weather. A portion of these exhalations, however, proceed from the lungs.
There is an experiment that may be easily tried, which affords conclusive evidence that the amount of insensible perspiration is much greater than it is ordinarily supposed to be. Take a dry glass jar, with a neck three or four inches in diameter, and thrust the hand and a part of the fore-arm into it, closing the space in the neck about the arm with a handkerchief. After the lapse of a few minutes, it will be seen, by drawing the fingers across the inside of the jar, that the insensible perspiration even from the hand is very considerable. Many attempts have been made to estimate accurately the amount of exhaled matter carried off through the skin; but many difficulties stand in the way of obtaining precise results. There is a great difference in different constitutions, and even in the same person at different times, in consequence of which we must be satisfied with an approximation to the truth.
Although the precise amount of perspiration can not be ascertained, it is generally agreed that the cutaneous exhalation is greater than the united excretions of both bowels and kidneys. Great attention has been given to this subject. Sanctorius, a celebrated medical writer, weighed himself, his food, and his excretions, daily, for thirty days. He inferred from his experiments that five pounds of every eight, of both food and drink, taken into the system, pass out through the skin. All physiologists agree that from twenty to forty ounces pass off through the skin of an adult in usual health every twenty-four hours. Take the lowest estimate, and we find the skin charged with the removal of twenty ounces of waste matter from the system every day. We can thus see ample reason why checked perspiration proves so detrimental to health; for every twenty-four hours during which such a state continues, we must either have this amount of useless and hurtful matter accumulating in the system, or some of the other organs of excretion must be greatly overtasked, which obviously can not happen without disturbing their regularity and well-being. It is generally known that continued exposure in a cold day produces either a bowel complaint or inflammation of some internal organ. Instead of expressing surprise at this, if people generally understood the structure and uses of their own bodies, they would rather wonder why one or the other of these effects is not always attendant upon so great a violation of the laws of health, which are the laws of God.
The lungs also excrete a large proportion of waste matter from the system. So far, then, their office is similar to that of the kidneys, the liver, and the bowels. In consequence of this alliance with the skin, these parts are more intimately connected with each other, in both healthy and diseased action, than with other organs. Whenever an organ is unusually delicate, it will be more easily affected by any cause of disease than those which are sound. Thus, in one instance, checked perspiration may produce a bowel complaint, and in another, inflammation of the lungs, and so on. Hence the fitness, in prescribing remedies, of adapting them not only to the disease itself, but of taking into the account the cause of the disease. A bowel complaint, for example, may arise either from overeating or from a check to perspiration. The thing to be cured is the same in both cases, but the means of cure ought obviously to be different. In one instance, an emetic or laxative, to carry off the offending cause, would be the most rational and efficacious remedy; in the other, a diaphoretic should be administered, to open the skin and restore it to a healthy action. Facts like these expose the ignorance and impudence of the quack, who undertakes to cure every form of disease by one remedy.
It has already been remarked that the skin is charged with the double function of excretion and absorption. We have a striking illustration of the exercise of the latter function in the vaccination of children and others, to protect them from small-pox. A small quantity of cow-pox matter is inserted under the external layer of the skin, where it is acted upon, and in a short time taken into the system by the absorbent vessels. In like manner, when the perspiration is brought to the surface of the skin, and confined there, either by injudicious clothing or by want of cleanliness, there is much reason to believe that its residual parts are again absorbed. It is established by observation that concentrated animal effluvia form a very energetic poison. We can, then, see why the absorption of the residual parts of perspiration produces fever, inflammation, and even death itself, according to its quantity and degree of concentration. This leads me to notice the importance of
Bathing.—The exhalation from the skin being so constant and extensive, and the bad effects of it when confined being so great, it becomes very important that we provide for its removal. This can be most easily and effectually accomplished by frequently bathing the whole body. This is a luxury within the reach of all, but one which is unappreciated by those who have not enjoyed it. An aged gentleman said to me recently, that in early life he "used to go a swimming frequently and enjoyed it much; but," he added, "I have not bathed or washed myself all over for the last thirty years!" This, it is believed, is an extreme case. But it is to be feared there are not wanting instances in which persons do not bathe the entire person once a month, or once a year even! When the residual parts of the perspiration are not removed by washing or bathing, they at last obstruct the pores and irritate the skin. It is apparently for this reason that, in the Eastern and warmer countries, where perspiration is very copious, ablution and bathing have assumed the rank and importance of religious observances. Those who are in the habit of using the flesh-brush daily are at first surprised at the quantity of white dry scurf which it brings off; and those who take a warm bath for half an hour at long intervals can not have failed to notice the great amount of impurities which it removes, and the grateful feeling of comfort which its use imparts. It is remarked by an eminent physician, that the warm, tepid, cold, or shower bath, as a means of preserving health, ought to be in as common use as a change of apparel, for it is equally a measure of necessary cleanliness. Many, no doubt, neglect this, and enjoy health notwithstanding; but many more suffer from its omission; and even the former would be greatly benefited by employing it. Cleanliness, then, is as essential