In all seasons of the year, and in all climates, the best material for
dress, for old and young, for strong and weak, is woollen. It is the
poorest conductor of heat, and therefore secures the most equable
temperature. This is the principal object of dress. The superiority of
woollen clothing for babes is even greater in July than in January. In
the warmest days a single thickness of soft flannel will suffice. But if
linen or cotton be worn, the garment is soon moistened by perspiration,
and two or three additional thicknesses are needed to protect the child
against the ill-effects of a draught.
In warm weather we find it necessary to wear woollen garments in the
gymnasium, as a protection against a chill from draughts while
perspiring. Our soldiers in the South find flannel their best friend,
securing them against the extremes and exposures of their camp and field
life. Blacksmiths, glass-blowers, furnace-men, and others exposed to the
highest temperatures, find woollen indispensable.
Few practices will do so much to secure the comfort and protect the
health of young children as dressing them in flannel night and day, the
year round. It may be objected that flannel irritates a delicate skin.
This is often so, as the skin is now treated. But there is no baby's
skin so thin and delicate that daily bathing and faithful friction may
not remove this extreme susceptibility. And as the skin is the organ
upon which the outer world makes its impressions, nothing is more
important than that all morbid susceptibility should be removed.
An additional advantage in the use of flannel is, that it serves by its
mechanical effect to keep up a healthy surface circulation, which is one
of the vital conditions of health. The skin and the lungs act and react
upon each other more directly, if possible, than any other two organs of
the body. Children born with a predisposition to consumption especially
need a vigorous treatment of the skin.
Professor Dunglison says,--"The best clothing to protect us from
external heat or cold is one that is a bad conductor of calorie, or one
that does not permit heat to pass readily through it." This is the case
with woollen. The Spaniard and the Oriental throw woollen mantles over
them when they expose themselves to the sun.
Londe asserts that "the use of woollen next the skin is one of the most
precious means possessed by therapeutics. Its use on children does much
to prevent bowel-affections, and with it we can bear with impunity the
vicissitudes of weather."
Brocchi ascribes the immunity of sheep which feed night and day in the
Campagna di Roma "to the protection afforded them by their wool."
Patissier affirms that woollen clothing has been found effectual in
preserving the health of laborers working in marshy grounds, canals, and
drains.
Captain Murray, of the English service, after two years spent among the
icebergs on the coast of Labrador, sailed, immediately upon his return
to England, for the West Indies, where he remained some months, and
while other officers lost many men, he returned to England without the
loss of a man, which he ascribed in considerable part to the use of
flannel. So important did he regard this hygienic measure that he had
every man examined daily to ascertain that he had not thrown off his
flannels.
A distinguished author writes that the aged, infirm, rheumatic, and
those liable to pulmonary disease, are greatly benefited by the use of
flannel.
Dr. Willich says,--"Wool recommends itself to us, because it is the
covering of those animals most resembling man in structure."
Count Rumford says he is convinced of the utility of flannel in all
seasons, that he was relieved by its use from a pain in the breast, to
which he was much subject, and had never since known an hour's illness.
The celebrated Hufeland says it is a desirable dress for the nervous,
those subject to colds, catarrhs, influenzas, and, in fact, for all
invalids.
Another writer says that desperate diseases would be prevented, and many
valuable lives saved, by its more universal use.
A distinguished American physician says that flannel next the skin is of
service to the consumptive by the irritation it produces, as well as
the defence it affords against the cold.
An English authority says,--"Experience has so fully evinced the utility
of covering the skin with flannel, that no person habituated to its use,
in our damp climate, can be persuaded to dispense with it at any season
of the year."