American Woman's Home: Or, Principles of Domestic Science Part 12

All the food that pa.s.ses through the lower intestines which is not drawn off by the lacteals or by some of these secreting organs, pa.s.ses from the body through a pa.s.sage called the r.e.c.t.u.m.

Learned men have made very curious experiments; to ascertain how much the several organs throw out of the body, It is found that the skin throws off five out of eight pounds of the food and drink, or probably about three or four pounds a day. The lungs throw off one quarter as much as the skin, or about a pound a day. The remainder is carried off by the kidneys and lower intestines.

There is such a sympathy and connection between all the organs of the body, that when one of them is unable to work, the others perform the office of the feeble one. Thus, if the skin has its perspiration-tubes closed up by a chill, then all the poisonous matter that would have been thrown out through them must be emptied out either by the lungs, kidneys, or bowels.

When all these organs are strong and healthy, they can bear this increased labor without injury. But if the lungs are weak, the blood sent from the skin by the chill engorges the weak blood-vessels, and produces an inflammation of the lungs. Or it increases the discharge of a slimy mucous substance, that exudes from the skin of the lungs.

This fills up the air-vessels, and would very soon end life, were it not for the spasms of the lungs, called _coughing_, which throw off this substance.

If, on the other hand, the bowels are weak, a chill of the skin sends the blood into all the blood-vessels of the intestines, and produces inflammation there, or else an excessive secretion of the mucous substance, which is called a _diarrhea._ Or if the kidneys are weak, there is an increased secretion and discharge from them, to an unhealthy and injurious extent.

This connection between the skin and internal organs is shown, not only by the internal effects of a chill on the skin; but by the sympathetic effect on the skin when these internal organs suffer. For example, there are some kinds of food that will irritate and influence the stomach or the bowels; and this, by sympathy, will produce an immediate eruption on the skin. Some persons, on eating strawberries, will immediately be affected with a nettle-rash. Others can not eat certain sh.e.l.l-fish without being affected in this way. Many humors on the face are caused by a diseased state of the internal organs with which the skin sympathizes.

This short account of the construction of the skin, and of its intimate connection with the internal organs, shows the philosophy of those modes of medical treatment that are addressed to this portion of the body.

It is on this powerful agency that the steam-doctors rely, when, by moisture and heat, they stimulate all the innumerable perspiration-tubes and lymphatics to force out from the body a flood of unnaturally excited secretions; while it is "kill or cure," just as the chance may meet or oppose the demands of the case. It is the skin also that is the chief basis of medical treatment in the Water Cure, whose slow processes are as much safer as they are slower.

At the same time it is the ill-treatment or neglect of the skin which, probably, is the cause of disease and decay to an incredible extent.

The various particulars in which this may be seen will now be pointed out. In the management and care of this wonderful and complex part of the body, many mistakes have been made.

The most common one is the misuse of the bath, especially since cold water cures have come into use. This mode of medical treatment originated with an ignorant peasant, amid a population where outdoor labor had strengthened nerves and muscles and imparted rugged powers to every part of the body. It was then introduced into England and America without due consideration or knowledge of the diseases habits, or real condition of patients, especially of women. The consequence was a mode of treatment too severe and exhausting; and many practices were spread abroad not warranted by true medical science.

But in spite of these mistakes and abuses, the treatment of the skin for disease by the use of cold water has become an accepted doctrine of the most learned medical pract.i.tioners. It is now held by all such that fevers can be detected in their distinctive features by the thermometer, and that all fevers can be reduced by cold baths and packing in the wet sheet, in the mode employed in all water-cures.

Directions for using this method will be given in another place.

It has been supposed that large bath-tubs for immersing the whole person are indispensable to the proper cleaning of the skin. This is not so. A wet towel, applied every morning to the skin, followed by friction in pure air, is all that is absolutely needed; although a full bath is a great luxury. Access of air to every part of the skin when its perspiratory tubes are cleared and its blood-vessels are filled by friction is the best ordinary bath.

In early life, children should be washed all over, every night or morning, to remove impurities from the skin. But in this process, careful regard should be paid to the peculiar const.i.tution of a child.

Very nervous children sometimes revolt from cold water, and like a tepid bath. Others prefer a cold bath; and nature should be the guide.

It must be remembered that the skin is the great organ of sensation, and in close connection with brain, spine, and nerve-centres: so that what a strong nervous system can bear with advantage is too powerful and exhausting for another. As age advances, or as disease debilitates the body, great care should be taken not to overtax the nervous system by sudden shocks, or to diminish its powers by withdrawing animal heat to excess. Persons lacking robustness should bathe or use friction in a warm room; and if very delicate, should expose only a portion of the body at once to cold air.

Johnson, a celebrated writer on agricultural chemistry, tells of an experiment by friction on the skin of pigs, whose skins are like that of the human race. He treated six of these animals with a curry-comb seven weeks, and left three other pigs untouched. The result was a gain of thirty-three pounds more of weight, with the use of five bushels less of food for those curried, than for the neglected ones. This result was owing to the fact that all the functions of the body were more perfectly performed when, by friction, the skin was kept free from filth and the blood in it exposed to the air. The same will be true of the human skin. A calculation has been made on this fact, by which it is estimated that a man, by proper care of his skin, would save over thirty-one dollars in food yearly, which is the interest on over five hundred dollars. If men will give as much care to their own skin, as they give to currying a horse, they will gain both health and wealth.

XII.

CLOTHING.

There is no duty of those persons having control of a family where principle and practice are more at variance than in regulating the dress of young girls, especially at the most important and critical period of life. It is a difficult duty for parents and teachers to contend with the power of fashion, which at this time of a young girl's life is frequently the ruling thought, and when to be out of the fashion, to be odd and not dress as all her companions do, is a mortification and grief that no argument or instructions can relieve.

The mother is often so overborne that, in spite of her better wishes, the daughter adopts modes of dress alike ruinous to health and to beauty.

The greatest protection against such an emergency is to train a child to understand the construction of her own body and to impress upon her, in early days, her obligations to the invisible Friend and Guardian of her life, the "Former of her body and the Father of her spirit,"

who has committed to her care so precious and beautiful a casket. And the more she can be made to realize the skill and beauty of construction shown in her earthly frame, the more will she feel the obligation to protect it from injury and abuse.

It is a singular fact that the war of fashion has attacked most fatally what seems to be the strongest foundation, and defense of the body, the bones. For this reason, the construction and functions of this part of the body will now receive attention.

The bones are composed of two substances, one animal, and the other mineral. The animal part is a very fine network, called _cellular membrane._ In this are deposited the harder mineral substances, which are composed princ.i.p.ally of carbonate and phosphate of lime. In very early life, the bones consist chiefly of the animal part, and are then soft and pliant. As the child advances in age, the bones grow harder, by the gradual deposition of the phosphate of lime, which is supplied by the food, and carried to the bones by the blood. In old age, the hardest material preponderates; malting the bones more brittle than in earlier life.

The bones are covered with a thin skin or membrane, filled with small blood-vessels which convey nourishment to them,

Where the hones unite with others to form joints, they are covered with _cartilage,_ which is a smooth, white, elastic substance. This enables the joints to move smoothly, while its elasticity prevents injuries from sudden jars.

The joints are bound together by strong, elastic bands called _ligaments,_ which hold them firmly and prevent dislocation.

Between the ends of the bones that unite to form joints are small sacks or bags, that contain a soft lubricating fluid. This answers the same purpose fur the joints as oil in making machinery work smoothly, while the supply is constant and always in exact proportion to the demand.

If you will examine the leg of some fowl, you can see the cartilage that covers the ends of the bones at the joints, and the strong white ligaments that bind the joints together.

The health, of the bones depends on the proper nourishment and exercise of the body as much as that of any other part. When a child is feeble and unhealthy, or when it grows up without exercise, the bones do not become firm and hard as they are when the body is healthfully developed by exercise. The size as well as the strength of the bones, to a certain extent, also depend upon exercise and good health.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 61]

The chief supporter of the body is the spine, which consists of twenty-four small bones, interlocked or hooked into each other, while between them are elastic cushions of cartilage which aid in preserving the upright, natural position. Fig. 61 shows three of the spinal bones, hooked into each other, the dark s.p.a.ces showing the disks or flat circular plates of cartilage between them.

The spine is held in its proper position, partly by the ribs, partly by muscles, partly by aid of the elastic disks, and partly by the close packing of the intestines in front of it.

The upper part of the spine is often thrown out of its proper position by constant stooping of the head over books or work. This affects the elastic disks so that they grow thick at the back side and thinner at the front side by such constant pressure. The result is the awkward projection of the head forward which is often seen in schools and colleges.

Another distortion of the spine is produced by tight dress around the waist. The liver occupies the right side of the body and is a solid ma.s.s, while on the other side is the larger part of the stomach, which is often empty. The consequence of tight dress around the waist is a constant pressure of the spine toward the unsupported part where the stomach lies. Thus the elastic dials again are compressed; till they become thinner on one side than the other, and harden into that condition. This produces what is called the _lateral curvature of the spine,_ making one shoulder higher than the other.

The compression of the lower part of the waist is especially dangerous at the time young girls first enter society and are tempted to dress according to the fashion. Many a school-girl, whose waist was originally of a proper and healthful size, has gradually pressed the soft bones of youth until the lower ribs that should rise and fall with every breath, become entirely unused. Then the abdominal breathing, performed by the lower part of the lungs, ceases; the whole system becomes reduced in strength; the abdominal muscles that hold up the interior organs become weak, and the upper ones gradually sink upon the lower. This pressure of the upper interior organs upon the lower ones, by tight dress, is increased by the weight of clothing resting on the hips and abdomen. Corsets, as usually worn, have no support from the shoulders, and consequently all the weight of dress resting upon or above them presses upon the hips and abdomen, and this in such a way as to throw out of use and thus weaken the most important supporting muscles of the abdomen, and impede abdominal breathing.

The diaphragm is a kind of muscular floor, extending across the centre of the body, on which the heart and lungs rest. Beneath it are the liver, stomach, and the abdominal viscera, or intestines, which are supported by the abdominal muscles, running upward, downward, and crosswise. When these muscles are thrown out of use, they lose their power, the whole system of organs mainly resting on them for support can not continue in their naturally snug, compact, and rounded form, but become separated, elongated, and unsupported. The stomach begins to draw from above instead of resting on the viscera beneath. This in some cases causes dull and wandering pains, a sense of pulling at the centre of the chest, and a drawing downward at the pit of the stomach.

Then as the support beneath is really _gone,_ there is what is often called "a feeling of _goneness."_ This is sometimes relieved by food, which, so long as it remains in a solid form, helps to hold up the falling superstructure. This displacement of the stomach, liver, and spleen interrupts their healthful functions, and dyspepsia and biliary difficulties not unfrequently are the result.

As the stomach and its appendages fall downward, the _diaphragm_, which holds up the heart and lungs, must descend also. In this state of things, the inflation of the lungs is less and less aided by the abdominal muscles, and is confined chiefly to their upper portion.

Breathing sometimes thus becomes quicker and shorter on account of the elongated or debilitated condition of the a.s.sisting organs. Consumption not unfrequently results from this cause.

The _heart_ also feels the evil. "Palpitations," "flutterings,"

"sinking feelings," all show that, in the language of Scripture, "the heart trembleth, and is moved out of its place."

But the _lower intestines_ are the greatest sufferers from this dreadful abuse of nature. Having the weight of all the unsupported organs above pressing them into unnatural and distorted positions, the pa.s.sage of the food is interrupted, and inflammations, indurations, and constipation, are the frequent result. Dreadful ulcers and cancers may be traced in some instances to this cause.

Although these internal displacements are most common among women, some foolish members of the other s.e.x are adopting customs of dress, in girding the central portion of the body, that tend to similar results.

But this distortion brings upon woman peculiar distresses. The pressure of the whole superinc.u.mbent ma.s.s on the pelvic or lower organs induces sufferings proportioned in acuteness to the extreme delicacy and sensitiveness of the parts thus crushed. And the intimate connection of these organs with the brain and whole nervous system renders injuries thus inflicted the causes of the most extreme anguish, both of body and mind. This evil is becoming so common, not only among married women, but among young girls, as to be a just cause for universal alarm.

How very common these sufferings are, few but the medical profession can realize, because they are troubles that must be concealed. Many a woman is moving about in uncomplaining agony who, with any other trouble involving equal suffering, would be on her bed surrounded by sympathizing friends.

The terrible sufferings that are sometimes thus induced can never be conceived of, or at all appreciated from, any use of language. Nothing that the public can be made to believe on this subject will ever equal the reality. Not only mature persons and mothers, but fair young girls sometimes, are shut up for months and years as helpless and suffering invalids from this cause. This may be found all over the land. And there frequently is a horrible extremity of suffering in certain forms of this evil, which no woman of feeble const.i.tution can ever be certain may not be her doom. Not that in all cases this extremity is involved, but none can say who will escape it.

In regard to this, if one must choose for a friend or a child, on the one hand, the horrible torments inflicted by savage Indians or cruel inquisitors on their victims, or, on the other, the protracted agonies that result from such deformities and displacements, sometimes the former would be a merciful exchange.

And yet this is the fate that is coming to meet the young as well as the mature in every direction. And tender parents are unconsciously leading their lovely and hapless daughters to this awful doom.

There is no excitement of the imagination in what is here indicated.

If the facts and details could be presented, they would send a groan of terror all over the land. For it is not one cla.s.s, or one section, that is endangered. In every part of our country the evil is progressing.