The proper periods for exercise are when the system is not depressed by fasting or oppressed by the process of digestion. The robust may take exercise before breakfast; but delicate persons, who often become faint from exercise at this time, and languid during the early part of the day had better defer it till from one to three hours after breakfast. Exercise prevents disease by giving vigour and energy to the body and its various organs and members and thus enables them to ward off or overcome the influence of the causes which tend to impair their integrity. It cures many diseases by equalizing the circulation and the distribution of nervous energy, thus invigorating and strengthening weak organs, and removing local torpor and congestion.
Invalids should always be moderate in their exercise; take only short walks, avoid fatigue, and not stand in the open air. The best time for them is in the forenoon, arranged so that they can rest for half-an-hour before dinner. They should never take exercise immediately before a meal or going to bed.
Brain workers must remember that if mental work absorbs all their energies they must be more sparing of physical exercise, but such systematized exercises as those of Muller can be practised with advantage by the hardest brain-workers.
10. Clothing.
The adoption of artificial clothing by man serves three purposes the regulation of the temperature of the body; protection from friction, insects, and dirt; and ornament.
In this climate clothing is chiefly employed for warmth, which purpose it secures by moderating or restraining the escape of heat from the body. Articles of clothing have no power in themselves of generating heat, and are designated as warm or cool just in proportion as they restrain or favour its escape. Thus a lady’s muff and a marble floor are ordinarily of the same temperature; but the sensation produced by each is widely different because then animal heat is retained by the muff, and rapidly carried off by the marble. Hence for clothing we select those substances which least conduct heat, such as the wool of sheep and the silk produced by silkworms, which are superior, as non-conductors, to cotton or linen. In this country we have recourse chiefly to the former in winter, and to the latter in summer, cotton and linen garments being coolest, linen cooler than cotton.
There are several practical errors on the subject of clothing, committed perhaps by a majority of persons, to which we may briefly direct attention. The first and most obvious of these, says Dr. Baikie, is wearing too much clothing indoors or in bed, thereby both exhausting the natural powers of the skin, and exposing its action to a sudden check on going out into the cold air. This forms one of the principal objections to the almost universal use of flannel, worn next the skin, and kept on even during the night, as is the practice with many persons. The skin is thus unnaturally excited, and in course of time loses its natural action; or, on the other hand, becomes so sensitive as to have its action checked on the slightest exposure. I never use anything else, the same physician informs us, than a light cotton shirt to sleep in, and strongly object to the common practice of sleeping in flannel. Of late years there have been various forms of underwear and nightwear manufactured in a close meshwork. These, especially the linen mesh garments, are very suitable, allowing a freer access of air to the skin.
Wearing Flannel next the Skin. The prevalence of this habit suggests the necessity of a word of caution. It is well known that, even in otherwise normal conditions, the skin of some persons is highly irritable and most unpleasantly excited by contact with flannel, and that when this exalted sensibility exists, the use of flannel next to the skin may develop decided physical alteration. It does this mechanically by retaining the local heat and intensifying reaction. Cases of skin disease often come before us in which Pruritus is thus aggravated and the affection prolonged, especially when combined with neglect of proper ablutions. In congested conditions of the skin, or in morbid states of the cutaneous nerves, flannel is inadmissible; or if necessary to guard against vicissitudes of the weather, it may be worn outside a linen garment as before suggested. The disease in which this advice is especially applicable are, according to Dr. Tilbury Fox, Erythemata Roseola, Urticaria, certainly Syphili odermata in their early stages, Scabies and Prurigo. A remembrance of this little practical fact, says the above author, will sometimes give us the greatest cause to be thankful that we attended to it, trifling though it be. Flannel, however, is of great value in our variable climate, and may be generally worn throughout the whole year as a great protection to health and life. Even in summer weather flannel need not be cast aside, but a thin, light garment of that material substituted for a heavy one.
Modern methods of manufacture have so improved the texture of woollen garments that the objection rightly taken to the rougher texture of flannel does not apply to these. Dr. Jaeger of Stuttgart has been a pioneer in this reform, and though he may have ridden his hobby too hard he has certainly done much good in introducing new and improved woollen garments to the public. Nevertheless the use of linen mesh, silk, or silk and wool underclothing is on the whole preferable.
The colour of clothing is not unimportant, light being preferable for the following and other reasons- (I) White reflects the rays of heat which the black absorbs; at the same time it impedes the transmission of heat from the body. Light- coloured clothes are therefore best both for winter and summer, retaining the heat in the former season, and keeping it off in the latter. (2) Dark clothing imbibes odorous particles most readily; as the effluvia of the dissecting-room, the smell of tobacco; and even the peculiar odour of London smoke is at once detected in black clothing by country people. Similarly the germs of disease are likely to retain their vitality longer on dark garments.
Frequent changing and cleansing of clothes is another point deserving attention. The practice of adopting dark-coloured instead of light -coloured garments has frequently its origin in economy, dark clothes tolerating an amount of dirt inadmissible in light. It should be recollected, however, that dark garments contract dirt after being worn a little time as much as light, and if not changed or cleansed may favour the production or spread of disease.
Thick, heavy, clothing, the tissues of which are close and firm, is inconvenient. The textures of materials for clothing should be loose and porous, and contain air in their interstices-air being a bad conductor of heat.
The advantages of having numerous light instead of fewer heavy coverings to the skin are these-the stratum of air interposed between each layer of covering being a non-conductor, they are relatively much warmer than a much greater thickness in few pieces; 2ndly, they can be more easily laid aside to suit changing temperature; 3rdly, being lighter, they are less apt to overheat the wearer and thus lessen the chance of a consequent chill.
In China, one of the most changeable climates in the world, the variation in one day being frequently 35 or 40 degrees, this is the mode adopted by the natives to protect themselves; a working man will often appear in the morning with fifteen or twenty light jackets on, one over the other, which he gradually strips off as the day gets warm, resuming them against towards night.
Other points may be briefly referred to. Summer clothes should not be put on too soon, or winter ones too late, Thin-soled or high-heeled boots and shoes are destructive to health. High- heeled boots tend to change the long axis of the body, directing the trunk backwards, and this, altering the inclination of the pelvis, is likely to influence, unfavourably, the process of gestation. Other injuries that have resulted are- troublesome corns, inflammation of the ligaments of the ankle joint, and of their sheaths, and even dislocation of this joint. Only the anatomist knows the frightful misplacement of the internal organs of the body that is caused by the suicidal habit of tight lacing, It gives rise, more or less, to that depression of spirits, so common to young ladies; and worse still, occasionally originates or aggravates organic disease of the most serious description. The muscles of the body were intended to sustain it erect; but when stays are applied they soon become indispensable, by superseding the action of the muscles; and, in accordance with a well-known law of the muscular system, whey they cease to be used they cease to grow, and become insufficient for the discharge of their natural functions. Fortunately the tendency of women today to take much more exercise has done a good deal to put an end to injurious tight-lacing.
Finally, it may be stated that the clothing of children, whose feeble frames are less able to resist cold than those of adults, is generally insufficient. When a baby is divested of its long clothes, it is in danger of being insufficiently clad, the danger increasing when it can run alone and is more exposed to atmospheric influences. It cannot be too strongly impressed upon those who have the charge of children that the practice of leaving those parts exposed which, when grown up we find it necessary to clothe warmly, especially the lower limbs and abdomen, is a frequent cause of retarded growth. ( See the Author’s work on Diseases of Infants and Children.) Insufficient warmth of body, whether in children or adults, renders the person more susceptible to the invasion of disease. On the other hand it is possible to go to the opposite extreme and mean to much or unnecessarily heavy clothing. There is an individuality in this respect, and it is a mistake to adopt a routine without thought for the individual case.
LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS; MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS; LICENTIATE IN MIDWIFERY, LONDON AND EDINBURGH, ETC. PHYSICIAN TO THE READING AND BERKSHIRE HOMOEOPATHIC DISPENSARY.
Author of "The Stepping Stone to Homeopathy and Health,"
"Manual of Homoeopathic Treatment". Editor of "The Homoeopathic World."