Earlier text: Lung Affections.Gathered from the Laws of Life.
“Let me be frank with you. Take women as you find them, as girls, sisters, marriageable daughters, wives or mothers. Begin the investigation at their girlhood and end it at their coffins, and tell me in what direction they, or men form any thing like just ideas in regard to the Laws of Health and Life as pertaining to their intellectual, physical, moral or spiritual development? Outside of the circle of Health Reformers, there is not a man who acts as if he ever thought his daughter is amenable to physical law in the same sense, or to any thing like the same degree that his son is. All his bearing and conduct go to show that he feels that it is of no consequence whether she is trained under the authority of the Laws of Health and Life or not. “Why, sir, as I write, can be seen from my window a group of children, boys and girls in equal numbers, playing out of doors in this wintry weather. The boys have upon their feet, heavy, thick-soled boots. They are dressed in pantaloons made of woolen cloth, lined, and coming to their ankles. The upper part of their bodies are covered with thick cotton shirting, vesting over that, and over these a woolen coat, with long sleeves, lined, and heavy woolen mittens upon their hands. Some of them have over all these an overcoat. The girls in this group are dressed as follows: Upon the upper part of their bodies is a cotton chemise, with short sleeves; over this is a calico dress with long sleeves, unlined, and thin mittens upon their hands. Over their hips they have a calico skirt, a petticoat, and a pair of drawers, the legs of which come just below the knee. On the feet are thin shoes and woolen stockings, the upper parts of which come57 within two inches of the lower part of the pantalettes, leaving the legs unclad between the knees and the bulge of the calves of the legs. Almost every one of these girls is at school from six to eight hours during the day, studying in a hot room, is of a nervous temperament, and of course, predisposed to large development of brain, and feeble nutritive energy, resulting in deficiency of muscles. Of ten girls that I can now count of this group at play, I have no hesitation in saying that at least three-fourths of them will not grow to womanhood. They must inevitably succumb to the infringement of the laws upon which their very existence depends, and growing out of their careless habits, or want of proper training on the part of their parents. This falseness begun in childhood in the training of girls, is almost universally carried on to adult age, so that so far as respects the Laws of Health and Life, the women of this country dress as defiantly and as disregardful of them as they dress their daughters when children, or as they themselves when children were dressed by their parents.” IMPROPER DRESS.—Sick headache may also be produced by improper dress. It is notorious that women suffer more from it than men. A great variety of causes I admit conduces to this result, but among them there can be no question, but that the style of dress which woman wears has more or less of significance. The fashion of her dress is such as to produce ligation around the body just at the point of separation between the nutritive and respiratory structures. Now, at this point, Nature demands that there be the freest circulation, and all ligatures, no matter how they are brought to bear, that disturb, in slight degree only, the circulation at this point, are calculated to produce just such nervous conditions as culminate in this disease. I can take a strong man and girt him about the waist, not where men are usually girt, but higher (just about the short ribs,) directly over the upper portions of the liver, spleen, and stomach, and the back just above the upper portions of the kidneys, and subject him to that process for sixteen hours, and unless he is58 constitutionally predisposed to show reactions as against any outrage to which his body has been subjected, I can induce sick headache,—that is, I will induce nausea or sickness at the stomach with such congestion of brain, and such fullness, or pain, over the eyes, as, without violation of language, to be denominated sick headache.” “HANDS.—A lady placed her hand in mine. It was small, soft, white, and delicate, and wore numerous rings set with costly jewels. I compared it with my own, which was large, brown, and ringless. As I looked at the two I thought to myself that out of a hundred persons who should see them together, ninety-nine would think that hers was far the prettier. And yet I would not exchange my hand for hers, for in either case, the hand was the representative of the whole body, and its conditions, and relations to life. Her hand looked pretty, but it was cold and clammy, and sought mine for the genial warmth which circulated to my finger tips. I thought of the question or proposition of our Saviour, ‘Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?’” “The lady’s care was for meat; mine was for life. Her care was for raiment; mine was for the body. Her care was for appearances; mine for reality. She would put on fine externals. She would have a fine complexion; hence she would not let the sunlight touch her face.—She would have her head fashionably dressed; hence she must have her long, heavy hair, combed and knotted behind. She would have a fashionable bust; hence she would have her dress girted so tightly as to press her ribs in upon her lungs. She would have her dress ‘fit beautifully’ about her shoulders; hence she would prevent all freedom of motion there.—She would represent in her dress, long, graceful, flowing lines; hence she wore her dress trailing upon the ground. She would wear costly shining silks; hence she would place herself in such conditions as to preserve such fabrics. She would have a small, genteel foot; hence she would wear tightly fitting shoes. She would have a beautiful hand; hence she would keep it from all but the most delicate uses.59 And it is her privilege to have all these; but with them she must take their belongings—a body deranged in all its functions, and unfitted for the uses of a healthy, well developed mind—a body full of vile impurities—a whited sepulcher, fair without, but within filled with all uncleanliness. “I like a fair appearance, but will have health; hence I will comply with the conditions on which health depends. I will have vigorous circulation, good eyesight, good hearing, acute smell, a nice sense of taste, keen appetite, refreshing sleep, clearness of brain.” “THE FEET.—The feet hold very important physiological and pathological relations. A wiser maxim for the preservation of health was never given than that which enjoins upon persons the necessity of keeping the head cool and the feet warm. The latter is quite as important as the former. Indeed the circulation of the brain cannot be healthful, and perfectly carried on, unless the feet are kept warm. It may be truly said that if the feet are kept entirely healthy, no organ in the body can be unhealthy. For so intimate is the sympathy between all parts of the body that no organ can be deranged without disturbing the circulation in the feet. If there is indigestion after a hearty dinner the feet suffer; if the liver is disturbed the feet suffer; if there is pressure upon the lungs, or if the bowels are inactive, or if the kidneys do not perform their office properly, the feet are sure to feel the reactionary influence unhealthfully. So if one will be sure to keep his feet in an entire state of health, he may be certain that he cannot be sick in any department of his system. “But the feet of almost every grown person in this country suffer from abuses put directly upon them. Health Reformers generally, give no such care to the feet as they deserve. They should be kept clean. They perspire more readily and freely than most other portions of the body, and the excreted matter ought to be removed by frequent washing. The stockings60 should be often changed. Everybody knows how much warmer clean stockings are than those which have been worn for some days. Where the feet perspire considerably, persons should have two pairs of stockings in wearing all the time, changing at midday, and allowing those which have been worn in the morning to become dry. All persons on removing their stockings at night, if they are to be resumed the next morning, should hang them up where they may become perfectly dry, and the perspired matters lodged in them, may be, partially at least, removed by the air circulating through them. Cotton is the best material for stockings, worn next the feet, except it be in very warm weather, when linen may be more comfortable. In cool or cold weather, thick warm woolen stockings should be worn, but there should be between them and the skin, thin cotton ones. People of sedentary habits particularly, do not take half pains enough to dress the feet warmly. The practice of sitting, either in sewing, knitting, writing, reading or studying, with the feet cold, is a fruitful cause of ill health. A more efficient means of producing cold feet could scarcely be contrived than that of wearing shoes made after the common fashion, and especially those worn by women. Not one woman in a hundred, wears shoes large enough for her feet, and not one person in a thousand wears shoes the shape of which is at all fitted to a naturally shaped foot. Nobody in this country has ever attempted to make shoes to fit human feet. Shoemakers cannot be induced to make shoes which will allow the foot to take its natural form and position. The use of the shoe is simply to protect the foot against unpleasant or injurious contact with the ground or other substances, and to retain its heat, preventing its passing off too rapidly. It is not at all to give shape to the foot. The shape of the foot in the shoe should be precisely what it would be if no shoe were worn. That is the shape in which God made it, and it is infinitely more desirable, so far as beauty or use is concerned, than the form into which it is crowded by “civilized” shoes. The time will come when some man or woman will invent a shoe which will be fitted to the shape of the61 foot, and it will be very much better looking than the shoes which are now worn. Till then Health Reformers should insist, in giving their orders for boots or shoes, upon having them made so wide in the sole, as well as in the upper leather, as to give the foot ample room. Have a sole so wide that the entire foot will rest upon it, even if you have to carry back half a dozen pairs before you can get one to suit—and most shoemakers will have to try at least half a dozen times before they can believe that you mean what you say. A tight shoe cannot be warm. Women are greatly at fault in this direction. Even in our Institution we find it exceedingly difficult to induce our feeble ladies to dress their feet at all properly. In the cool, chilly autumn days they will persist in wearing thin cotton stockings, and thin cloth shoes, so tight as to materially interfere with capillary circulation—so falsely educated in regard to physical life are women everywhere. Garters do not come precisely under the head of clothing for the feet, but they are frequently so much concerned in the poor circulation of the feet, that they should be introduced here. By their pressure upon the blood vessels, particularly the veins as they pass up the leg, they intercept the free and natural flow of the blood, and so are in a very large degree productive of coldness of the feet. The return of blood from the feet to the heart has to be performed in opposition to the law of gravitation, which makes all substances tend downward. Blood flows down hill as naturally as water; hence there is a special contrivance to carry it from the feet back into the trunk of the body. There are valves in nearly all of the veins of the body, but an unusual number in the veins of the legs, which open upward, or toward the heart, allowing the blood to pass freely in that direction, but shutting, if it sets backward, and thus preventing its return. But these valves are exceedingly delicate, and can be broken down. Many a woman has worn her garters so tight as to retard the movement of the blood upward through the veins of the legs, to that degree that it has set back and overcome the resistance of the valves, thus destroying them, and causing that troublesome and painful62 difficulty, varicose veins. But where this extreme effect is not produced, almost universally the circulation is retarded so far as to disturb materially the healthful condition of the feet. “Let the student, the professional man, the seamstress, the teacher, see that their feet are kept in healthful conditions, and above all let the mother see to it that the feet of her children are kept warm, and they will have very greatly added securities for the preservation of their general health.” “Look at the upper part of her dress. No woman has it so fitted as to allow her to raise her arms straight from the shoulder above her head. That part of it which we country people call the waist, is oftener than otherwise cut so that it is impossible for her to breathe as nature intends she should. I would like to offer a dollar apiece for each woman in the State of New York, of whom a committee of physicians should affirm that she breathed physiologically, provided I could have one cent paid to me for each woman in the State of whom it should be decided by said committee that she breathed unphysiologically. There is not one woman in five thousand, in the State of New York, who breathes naturally. The lungs play unhealthfully at every respiration. The diaphragm and intercostal muscles have double labor, in fact do pretty much all the labor of breathing, while the abdominal muscles, which are particularly intended to aid efficiently in this most vital process, are nearly useless. “If a man stands upon his feet, with his clothing about him, so that he can breathe freely, you will generally find the most essential movement at the bulge of the abdomen. There is where you see the clearest indication of full respiration, but if a woman is clad in her usual mode, and you watch her respiration, you shall generally find it restricted to the upper part of the chest. The reason why, in order to fill her lungs she is to show motion at this particular point, is because of the girted condition of her clothing just at the line of separation between the lungs and the stomach. “Here, then are two very important considerations connected with dress. One is, that a woman’s dress should be fitted so that she can have the free use of her arms, the other, that she should have the free use of her respiratory organs.” “I assure you, my friend, the reason why children die by scores in every little hamlet and village every year, is not because God has so organized them that they cannot live, nor because parents have not enough natural affection to take care of them; but because parents are wickedly ignorant and stupidly heedless as to the care they need. If the calves, or the pigs, or the lambs, or even the cats, in a section of country, were to have so great mortality prevail among them as has prevailed among the children in thousands of neighborhoods in our country during the past five years, there would immediately be a scientific investigation as to the cause of such frequent deaths in the case of these animals. The men would gather together in public meetings to discuss and to devise means for the alleviation of such a state of affairs; and as interesting discussions would be held by the women in private circles. There would not be simple regret that the creatures were dying; there would be active measures taken to arrest the devastation. Not so when children die. There is discussion enough, and excitement and interest without stint. There is speculation as to the comparative merits of the different physicians employed, and opinions expressed that if such a child had been attended by such a physician, or had not had such a doctor, the result would have been different. But there is no intelligent inquiry into the causes why sickness prevails. Parents rise up in fear every morning, and lie down in dread every night, and yet go on from day to day, treating their children in such a manner that it is almost a miracle if they escape being sick.” “My friend, perhaps you have a little daughter. If she is dressed in the style in which little girls are usually clad, you cannot find if you will travel through the length and breadth of the United States, an honest and intelligent physician, physiologist, or other person,64 who understands the structure and functions of the human organism, who will not tell you that the manner of your child’s dress is such as is directly and very powerfully calculated to produce disease. Look at her now, in this fall weather, with her lower limbs from the hips downward covered only with, at most, one or two thicknesses of cotton! The hoops outside of these hold all the other clothing out from the body, so that there is a complete reservoir for cold air underneath. Perhaps she is kept in the house most of the time; but she cannot go from one room to another, she cannot even play about the floor of the sitting-room, without passing through currents of cold air, and having the circulation of the blood in her feet and legs disturbed. How would you get along, let me ask you, with your legs no better covered than hers? You would be in a perfect shiver all the time. Then think how much more feeble is her circulation, how much more delicate are all her structures, than yours, and answer to yourself whether, in the sight of Heaven, you are justifiable for permitting her to go one more day dressed in such style.” “I appeal to you, rather than the mother, because men are supposed to be less under the control of fashion than women, and because certainly men can appreciate the value and comfort of being warmly clad better than women can do who dress after the common fashion. And now, having had your attention directed to this matter, if you should allow any consideration to prevent you from immediately seeing that your daughter is comfortably and healthfully clad, and under such neglect she should die by disease before another spring has come, may you not expect to hear the voice of conscience saying to you, down to the latest day of your life, ‘You were the murderer of your child!’” “For the coldest weather, there should be worn next the body a garment, comprising drawers, waist, and sleeves reaching to the wrist, of cotton flannel. Over this a similar garment of woolen flannel, and over this, a waist with sleeves, to which are buttoned firmly the trowsers. At least a child needs as much65 clothing as this, in the severest weather in our latitude. The stockings and shoes should correspond in warmth. Then the little girl should have a good pair of leather boots, sufficiently large to admit of an extra pair of stockings being worn, without interfering in the least with the circulation of the blood in the feet, a pair of good thick cloth trowsers, to be put on outside, a thick warm coat (or cloak) and a pair of warm mittens. Then, every day from November to June, she should spend at least two or three hours in the open air. If you will see to it that your little daughter is treated in this way, and lives on simple food, eating nothing between meals—not even fruit, nuts, or a bit of candy—and that her suppers, if she takes any at all, are very light, and will have her regular in her habits, you will have furnished to her a security for life and health immeasurably greater than that which she has now.” “BOOTS FOR WOMEN. The Princess Royal of England had as a part of her out-fit twelve pairs of Boots. Some of these intended for rough walking were provided with treble soles. “English women dress their feet much more healthfully than American women. One great cause of ill-health and in fact of premature death of the women in the United States, is the imperfect and improper way in which women clothe their lower limbs. One has but to go into our schools to see how early, parents begin to murder their daughters. Little girls with light skirts descending two-thirds of the way from the knees to the feet, while the legs are cased in thin stockings and the feet in thin boot-ees, thus contriving the most efficient way to disturb and derange the circulation, and produce congestion of the lungs. In the Autumn, the Winter, and the Spring, all persons who have to be out of doors should wear boots, made with long legs and thick soles. I trust our fashionable women will consent to take care of their healths, now they know that the Princess Royal looks after hers and wears boots.” In this age of degeneracy, children are born with enfeebled constitutions. Parents are amazed at the great mortality among infants and youth, and say, “It did not use to be so.” Children were then more healthy and vigorous, with far less care than is now bestowed upon them. Yet with all the care they now receive, they grow feeble, wither and die. As the result of wrong habits in parents, disease and imbecility have been transmitted to their offspring. After their birth, they are made very much worse by careless inattention to the laws of their being. Proper management would greatly improve their physical health. But parents seldom pursue a right course toward their infant children, considering the miserable inheritance already received from them. Their wrong course toward their children results in lessening their hold of life, and prepares them for premature death. These parents had no lack of love for their children, but this love was misapplied. One great error with the mother in the treatment of her infant is, she deprives it very much of fresh air, that which it ought to have to make it strong. It is a practice of many mothers to cover their infant’s heads while sleeping, and this, too, in a warm room, which is seldom ventilated as it should be. This alone is sufficient to greatly enfeeble the action of the heart and lungs, thereby affecting the whole system. While care may be needful to protect the infant from a draught of air, or from any sudden and too great change, especial care should be taken to have the child breathe a pure invigorating atmosphere. No disagreeable odor should remain in the nursery, or about the child. Such things are more dangerous to the feeble infant than to grown persons. Mothers have been in the practice of dressing their infants in reference to fashion instead of health. The67 infant wardrobe is generally prepared to look prettily, more for show than for convenience and comfort. Much time is spent in embroidering, and in unnecessary fancy work, to make the garments of the little stranger beautiful. The mother often performs this work at the expense of her own health, and that of her offspring. When she should be enjoying pleasant exercise, she is often bent over work which severely taxes eyes and nerves. And it is often difficult to arouse the mother to her solemn obligations to cherish her own strength, for her own good, as well as that of the child. Show and fashion are the demon altar upon which many American women sacrifice their children. The mother places upon the little morsel of humanity the fashionable dresses which she had spent weeks in making, which are wholly unfit for its use, if health is to be regarded of any account. The garments are made extravagantly long, and in order to keep them upon the infant, its body is girted with tight bands, or waists, which hinder the free action of the heart and lungs. Infants are also compelled to bear a needless weight because of the length of their garments, and thus clothed, they do not have free use of their muscles and limbs. Mothers have thought it necessary to compress the bodies of their infant children to keep them in shape, as though fearful that without tight bandages, they would fall in pieces, or become deformed. Do the animal creation become deformed because nature is left to do her own work? Do the little lambs become deformed because they are not girted about with bands to give them shape? They are delicately and beautifully formed. Human infants are the most perfect, and yet the most helpless, of all the Creator’s handiwork, and, therefore, their mothers should be instructed in regard to physical laws, so as to be capable of rearing them with physical, mental, and moral health. Mothers, nature has given your infants forms which need no girts or bands to perfect them. God has supplied them with bones and muscles sufficient for their support, and to guard nature’s fine machinery68 within, before committing it to your care. The dress of the infant should be so arranged that its body will not be the least compressed after taking a full meal. Dressing infants in a fashionable manner, to be introduced into company for visitors to admire, is very injurious to them. Their clothing is ingeniously arranged to make the child miserably uncomfortable, and it is frequently made still more uneasy by passing from one to the other, being fondled by all. But there is an evil greater than those already named. The infant is exposed to a vitiated air, caused by many breaths, some of which are very offensive and injurious to the strong lungs of older people. The infant lungs suffer, and become diseased by inhaling the atmosphere of a room poisoned by the tobacco-user’s tainted breath. Many infants are poisoned beyond remedy by sleeping in beds with their tobacco-using fathers. By inhaling the poisonous tobacco effluvia, which is thrown from the lungs and pores of the skin, the system of the infant is filled with the poison. While it acts upon some as a slow poison, and affects the brain, heart, liver, and lungs, and they waste away and fade gradually, upon others, it has a more direct influence, causing spasms, fits, paralysis, palsy, and sudden death. The bereaved parents mourn the loss of their loved ones, and wonder at the mysterious providence of God which has so cruelly afflicted them, when Providence designed not the death of these infants. They died martyrs to the filthy lust of tobacco. Their parents ignorantly, but none the less surely, kill their infant children by the disgusting poison. Every exhalation of the lungs of the tobacco slave, poisons the air about him. Infants should be kept free from every thing which would have an influence to excite the nervous system, and should, whether waking or sleeping, day and night, breath a pure, cleanly, healthy atmosphere, free from every taint of poison. Another great cause of mortality among infants and youth, is the custom of leaving their arms and shoulders naked. This fashion cannot be too severely censured. It has cost the life of thousands. The air,69 bathing the arms and limbs, and circulating about the armpits, chills these sensitive portions of the body, so near the vitals, and hinders the healthy circulation of the blood, and induces disease, especially of the lungs and brain. Those who regard the health of their children of more value than the foolish flattery of visitors, or the admiration of strangers, will ever clothe the shoulders and arms of their tender infants. The mother’s attention has been frequently called to the purple arms and hands of her child, and she has been cautioned in regard to this health and life-destroying practice; and the answer has often been, “I always dress my children in this manner. They get used to it. I cannot endure to see the arms of infants covered. It looks old-fashioned.” These mothers dress their delicate infants as they would not venture to dress themselves. They know that if their own arms were exposed without a covering, they would shiver with chilliness. Can infants of a tender age endure this process of hardening without receiving injury? Some children may have at birth so strong constitutions that they can endure such abuse without its costing them life; yet thousands are sacrificed, and tens of thousands have the foundation laid for a short, invalid life, by the custom of bandaging and surfeiting the body with much clothing, while the arms—which are at such distance from the seat of life, and for that cause need even more clothing than the chest and lungs—are left naked. Can mothers expect to have quiet and healthy infants, who thus treat them? When the limbs and arms are chilled, the blood is driven from these parts to the lungs and head. The circulation is impeded, and nature’s fine machinery does not move harmoniously. The system of the infant is deranged, and it cries and mourns because of the abuse it is compelled to suffer. The mother feeds it, thinking it must be hungry, when food only increases its suffering. Tight bands and an overloaded stomach do not agree. It has no room to breathe. It may scream, struggle and pant for breath, and yet the mother not mistrust the cause. She could relieve the sufferer at once, at least of tight bandages, if she understood70 the nature of the case. She at length becomes alarmed, and thinks her child really ill, and summons a doctor, who looks gravely upon the infant a few moments and then deals out poisonous medicines, or something called a soothing cordial, which the mother, faithful to directions, pours down the throat of the abused infant. If it was not diseased in reality before, it is after this process. It suffers now from drug-disease, the most stubborn and incurable of all diseases. If it recovers, it must bear about more or less in its system the effects of that poisonous drug, and it is liable to spasms, heart disease, dropsy on the brain, or consumption. Some infants are not strong enough to bear even a trifle of drug poisons, and as nature rallies to meet the intruder, the vital forces of the tender infant are too severely taxed, and death ends the scene. It is no strange sight in this age of the world, to view the mother lingering around the cradle of her suffering, dying infant, her heart torn with anguish, as she listens to its feeble wail, and witnesses its expiring struggles. It seems mysterious to her, that God should thus afflict her innocent child. She does not think that her wrong course has brought about the sad result. She just as surely destroyed her infant’s hold on life as though she had given it poison. Disease never comes without a cause. The way is first prepared, and disease invited by disregarding the laws of health. God does not take pleasure in the sufferings and death of little children. He commits them to parents, for them to educate physically, mentally and morally, and train them for usefulness here, and for Heaven at last. If the mother remains in ignorance in regard to the physical wants of her child, and, as the result, her child sickens, she need not expect that God will work a miracle to counteract her agency in making it sick. Thousands of infants have died who might have lived. They are martyrs to their parent’s ignorance of the relation which food, dress and the air they breathe, sustain to health and life. Mothers in past ages, should have been physicians to their own children.71 The time she devoted to the extra beautifying of her infant’s wardrobe, she should have spent in a nobler purpose—in educating her mind with regard to her own physical wants, and that of her offspring. She should have been storing her mind with useful knowledge, in regard to the best course she could pursue in rearing her children healthfully, with the view that generations would be injured or benefited, by her course of action. Mothers who have troublesome, fretful infants, should study into the cause of their uneasiness. By so doing, they will often see that something is wrong in their management. It is often the case, that the mother becomes alarmed by the symptoms of illness manifested by her child, and hurriedly summons a physician, when the infant’s sufferings would have been relieved by taking off its tight clothing, and putting upon it garments properly loose and short, that it may use its feet and limbs. Mothers should study from cause to effect. If the child has taken cold, it is generally owing to the wrong management of the mother. If she covers its head, as well as its body while sleeping, in a short time it will be in a perspiration, caused by labored breathing, because of the lack of pure, vital air. When she takes it from beneath the covering, it is almost sure to take cold. The arms being naked, exposes the infant to constant cold, and congestion of lungs or brain. These exposures prepare the way for the infant to become sickly and dwarfed. Parents are accountable in a great degree, for the physical health of their children. Those children who survive the abuses of their infancy, are not out of danger in their childhood. Their parents still pursue a wrong course toward them. Their limbs, as well as their arms, are left almost naked. Those who value fashion above health, place hoops upon their children. Hoops are not convenient, modest or healthful. They prevent the clothing from falling close about the body. Mothers then dress the upper part of their limbs with muslin pantalettes, which reach about to the knee, while the lower part of their limbs are covered with72 only one thickness of flannel or cotton, while their feet are dressed with thin-soled gaiter boots. Their garments being kept from the body by hoops, it is impossible for them to receive sufficient warmth from their clothing, and their limbs are continually bathed in cold air. The extremities are chilled, and the heart has thrown upon it double labor, to force the blood into these chilled extremities, and when the blood has performed its circuit through the body, and returned to the heart, it is not the same vigorous warm current which left it. It has been chilled in its passage through the limbs. The heart, weakened by too great labor, and poor circulation of poor blood, is then compelled to still greater exertion, to throw the blood to the extremities which are never as healthfully warm as other parts of the body. The heart fails in its efforts, and the limbs become habitually cold; and the blood, which is chilled away from the extremities, is thrown back upon the lungs and brain, and inflammation and congestion of the lungs or the brain is the result. God holds mothers accountable for the diseases their children are compelled to suffer. Mothers bow at the shrine of fashion, and sacrifice the health and lives of their children. Many mothers are ignorant of the result of their course in thus clothing their children. But should they not inform themselves, where so much is at stake? Is ignorance a sufficient excuse for you who possess reasoning powers? You can inform yourselves if you will, and dress your children healthfully. Parents may give up the expectation of their children’s having health while they dress them in cloaks and furs, and load down those portions of the body with clothing where there is no call for such an amount, and then leave the extremities, that should have especial protection, almost naked. The portions of the body, close by the life springs, need less covering than the limbs which are remote from the vital organs. If the limbs and feet could have the extra coverings usually put upon the shoulders, lungs and heart, and healthy circulation be induced to the extremities,73 the vital organs would act their part healthfully, with only their share of clothing. I appeal to you mothers, do you not feel alarmed, and heart-sick, in seeing your children pale and dwarfed, suffering with catarrh, influenza, croup, scrofula swellings appearing upon the face and neck, inflammation and congestion of lungs and brain? Have you studied from cause to effect? Have you provided for them a simple nutritious diet, free from grease and spices? Have you not been dictated by fashion, in clothing your children? Leaving their arms and limbs insufficiently protected has been the cause of a vast amount of disease and premature deaths. There is no reason why the feet and limbs of your girls, should not be in every way as warmly clad as those of your boys. Boys, accustomed to exercise out of doors, become inured to cold and exposure, and are actually less liable to colds when thinly clad, than the girls, because the open air seems to be their natural element. Delicate girls, accustom themselves to live in-doors, and in a heated atmosphere, and yet they go from the heated room out of doors with their limbs and feet seldom better protected from the cold than while remaining in a close warm room. The air soon chills their limbs and feet, and prepares the way for disease. Your girls should wear the waists of their dresses perfectly loose, and they should have a style of dress convenient, comfortable and modest. In cold weather they should wear warm flannel or cotton drawers, which can be placed inside the stockings. Over these should be warm lined pants, which may be full, gathered into a band, and neatly buttoned around the ankle, or taper at the bottom and meet the shoe. Their dress should reach below the knee. With this style of dress, one light skirt, or at most two, is all that is necessary, and these should be buttoned to a waist. The shoes should be thick-soled, and perfectly comfortable. With this style of dress your girls will be no more in danger in the open air than your boys. And their health would be much better, were they to live more out of doors, even in winter, than to be confined to the close air of a room heated by a stove. It is a sin in the sight of Heaven for parents to dress their children as they do. The only excuse that they can make is, it is fashion. They cannot plead modesty to thus expose the limbs of their children with only one covering drawn tight over them. They cannot plead that it is healthful, or really attractive. Because others will continue to follow this health and life-destroying practice, it is no excuse for those who style themselves reformers. Because everybody around you follow a fashion which is injurious to health, it will not make your sin a whit the less, or be any guarantee for the health and life of your children.