Health Lessons Part 9

After thirty or forty years of age the hair begins to turn gray. No medicine will prevent the hair from turning gray, and it is generally unwise to color the hair with a dye. There is poison in some of the mixtures sold to color the hair.

=The Care of the Hair.=--When the hair is uncombed, the whole person looks untidy. The hair should be combed carefully every morning and again made tidy before each meal. You should use as little water as possible to moisten the hair. The glands can be made to give out their hair oil by squeezing parts of the scalp between the fingers.

The scalp should be well cleansed with soap and warm water every three or four weeks. The hair should be dried quickly with a soft towel and by sitting in the sun or near a stove. One is likely to catch cold by going out of doors when the hair is wet. Hair oils and dandruff cures should not be used unless advised by a physician. Pinching and wrinkling the scalp twice weekly with the fingers makes the blood tubes grow larger and bring more food to the hair. It will also in many persons stop the hair from falling out and prevent dandruff and itching.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48.--Photographs showing how keeping the hair tidy improves the appearance.]

Do not use the hair brush of another person or exchange hats with your companions. Unclean persons and those living or playing much with them often have among their hairs little creatures called _head lice_. They suck blood and cause constant itching. The doctor will tell any one how to get rid of them easily.

=Keeping the Skin Clean.=--The amount of dead matter carried out by the sweat on to the skin every day is equal to a ma.s.s as large as your thumb. Dust also works through the clothing and sticks fast to the moist skin. For this reason every one should wash the whole body once or twice each week. The feet should be washed oftener as they become more soiled.

Many persons take a bath every day. A cold bath taken just after rising in the morning wakes up the nerves, makes the heart work better, and gives health and strength to the whole body. Afterward, the body should be well rubbed with a coa.r.s.e towel. The bath may be taken by lying in a tub of water or by rubbing the body over quickly with a wet sponge. A hot bath is best for cleansing the skin. A warm bath makes one sleepy and should, therefore, be taken only at bedtime.

_The hands should always be well washed before handling food._ Persons neglecting to do this have caused much sickness because of the disease germs on their hands. One hundred and fifty persons were given typhoid fever in one city in Ma.s.sachusetts by a man who handled milk without was.h.i.+ng his hands. Dirt and disease are companions. You must be clean if you would be healthy.

=The Kidneys.=--The sweat glands do not take out of the blood one quarter as much waste matter as the kidneys. These are two bodies longer than the finger and more than twice as wide, and having the shape of a bean. One lies on either side of the backbone below the liver.

The blood coming to the kidneys is full of waste and dead matter picked up from all parts of the body. This is pa.s.sed out through the thin walls of the thousands of little blood tubes into the many tiny tubes of the kidneys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49.--The blood tubes in a piece of skin as large as the head of a pin.]

Water is required to keep the body clean within as well as without.

For this reason you should drink more than a quart of water daily. A gla.s.s or two of water drunk a half hour before meals cleanses and rouses to action the digestive organs.

=Alcohol and the Skin.=--The skin of those who use much beer or whisky often becomes rough, red, and pimply. Any alcoholic drink is likely to injure the skin because it may hinder good digestion. The drunkard has a red nose and a dark-colored skin. This is because alcohol weakens the walls of the blood tubes and lets them become gorged with blood.

If a person takes a drink only once in a while, his face becomes red after each drink, and an hour or two later the effect of the alcohol pa.s.ses off. The blood tubes have squeezed up to their natural size.

=Alcohol and the Kidneys.=--Taking several gla.s.ses daily of even such weak alcoholic drink as beer often causes the kidneys to become sick.

Some of their working parts become changed to fat and some parts become hard. The cells which let the waste matter pa.s.s out of the blood get hurt by the poison of the alcohol so that they let some of the food also pa.s.s out of the blood.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. Name the two parts of the skin.

2. Give the three uses of the skin.

3. What is a sweat gland?

4. How much sweat is formed daily?

5. Of what use is the sweat?

6. How should the nails be cared for?

7. Tell what care should be given the hair.

8. Why should you not use another person's hair brush?

9. Why should the skin be washed often?

10. Of what use is a cold bath?

11. Why should the hands be well washed before handling food?

12. Why does the drunkard have a red nose?

CHAPTER XIII

CLOTHING AND HOW TO USE IT

=Kinds of Clothing.=--People are beginning to learn that the wearing of the right kind of clothing has much to do with keeping them well.

Many persons wear too heavy clothing in winter. Keeping the body too hot makes it weak.

Some kinds of clothing are much warmer than others. Some are expensive and others are cheap. Cheap clothes will often serve the same purpose as the more costly ones. If you look at your handkerchief or stockings, you will see that they are made of threads running crosswise to each other. All clothing is made from threads. Some of these are wool, some are linen, a few are silk, and many are cotton.

=Woolen Clothing.=--Woolen clothing, such as overcoats and fine cloth dresses and suits, is made from the wool cut from sheep. Enough wool can be sheared from two sheep in one year to make an entire suit of clothes. The raw wool is first twisted into threads and then woven by machines into cloth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 50.--At the left is a bunch of flax gathered from the field, and on the right is a spool of thread made from the flax and ready to be woven into linen.]

=Linen.=--Linen is used in making collars, cuffs, and handkerchiefs.

It is made from fine threads taken from the flax plant. On a piece of ground as large as a schoolroom enough flax can be raised to make a half dozen collars. Garments to be worn in warm weather are sometimes made of linen.

=Silk.=--Silk is used in making neckties, gloves, ribbons, and dresses. Silk cloth is woven from the coc.o.o.ns made by silkworms. A silkworm is about as big as your largest finger. It grows to this size from the egg in one month. In three or four days it spins a sh.e.l.l of silk thread completely surrounding itself. This sh.e.l.l is called a _coc.o.o.n_. Within this it changes to a moth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 51.--Photograph of silkworms changing mulberry leaves into silk.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 52.--These fibers from the lint about the seed of cotton are woven into cotton cloth.]

When the coc.o.o.ns are to be used for silk, the worm is killed by heat as soon as it has woven its home so that it may not change to a moth and eat off some of the silk in getting out. Many thousand worms are needed to get enough silk for a dress. The worms are raised largely in China, j.a.pan, Italy, and France.

=Cotton.=--All calico, muslin, and most cheap clothing are made from cotton thread. This is made from the cotton fibers surrounding the seeds of the cotton plant (Fig. 52). The cotton used in this country is raised in the Southern states.

Cotton clothing is stronger and wears much longer than silk or wool, but it does not look so well and is not nearly so warm.

=The Use of Wraps and Overcoats.=--_Outer wraps and overcoats should never be worn in a warm room or while working hard._ They cause much sweat to form on the body, and as soon as one goes out of doors the sweat begins to pa.s.s off. This makes the body feel cold and in some cases leads to a long sickness.

When riding in cold weather, extra wraps should be worn. Scarfs and furs should not be worn about the throat except in extreme cold weather. Bundling up the neck and chin is likely to cause sore throat.

=Danger from Wet Clothing.=--Many children have caught severe colds leading to serious sickness by wearing wet or damp clothing. Wet clothing causes the heat to pa.s.s off from the body quickly, so that it is chilled before we know it. This may be shown by wrapping two bottles of warm water in cloths. Wet one cloth and let the other remain dry. In twenty minutes the bottle with the wet cloth will be cool, but the other one will still be warm. _If your wet clothing cannot be changed at once, keep exercising or throw a heavy coat about you._

=Untidy and Soiled Clothing.=--All boys and girls should learn to keep their clothing as clean as possible. Do not wipe the hands on the clothing, or sit down in the dirt, or let food smear the front of the coat or dress.