Importance of health to domestics. Modes by which they injure health.

My Friends:

Much of the ill health among persons in your employment is entirely needless. You have employments, usually, that tend to strengthen the constitution and maintain firm health, and as a class you have far more health and strength than those who do not labour.

Now, good health is the greatest of all blessings, for without it, no matter how many other blessings we have, we cannot enjoy life. Many and many a woman in this land, who has wealth, and ease, and education, and friends, and every thing that wealth can purchase, goes about gloomy and sick at heart, because disease has spread its dark shroud over all the enjoyments of life.

But it is a far greater misfortune to persons in your situation to lose health, than to [127]persons who have wealth and a comfortable home.

When you are sick, you have no parents or family friends around you, to nurse and sympathize; you know that the family you live in have not only lost your services, but are obliged to wait upon you, and you feel that you are a burden. You may have no home to go to, or your home may be so comfortless that you had rather stay among strangers; your wages stop, and if you have any little earnings laid up, they must go to pay for medicines and a physician.

All these things make it of the utmost consequence, that you take good care of your health. And yet, I am sorry to say, that I know of no class of persons who seem to be so careless and imprudent in regard to health. We see domestics go out from the wash-tub in a profuse perspiration, to stand in the wind and hang out wet clothes, and that too, without any thing on the head, or any shawl or cloak on. We see them go out in leaky shoes and wet their feet, and then sit a whole evening in [128]company, or a meeting, with their feet wet and cold.

We see them sleeping in close chambers, or sitting hour after hour in crowded rooms for religious worship, breathing an atmosphere that is absolutely poisonous, without knowing that they are thus injuring their health. And there are many other ways in which they are wearing down their constitutions, without being aware of it.

I do not think I can possibly make you feel the importance of the advice I am about to offer, without your understanding more than you do, about the construction of your own bodies. And I wish I could get you to read a few chapters in a book I have written called “Domestic Economy,” in which I have described how the interior of your bodies is formed, and drawn pictures to explain what I say, so that I think you could easily understand the matter. And if you ever come across that work, I hope you will read the Chapter on the Care of Health, and the five or six chapters that follow it.

[129] But I will here tell you some things, which I think you can understand without any pictures.

You know that we take food and drink into our stomach to support and continue life. Now this food is changed into a soft mass in the stomach, and then passes through long winding intestines, that are folded up below the stomach. As it passes through these intestines, there are multitudes of little hollow tubes, small as hairs, that pump out the nourishment and carry it to a particular blood-vessel, when it is emptied into the heart, and mixes with the blood. This is the way the blood is constantly renewed. Now it is the blood that thus conveys strength and nourishment to every part of the body. There is no part of the body, within or without, that has not a vast many small blood-vessels, running in every direction, that carry the blood to nourish all parts. But there are more blood-vessels in the skin than anywhere else, so that the quantity of blood in our skin is greater than all that is to be found, in all the rest of the body put together. All the matter received from our food which is nourishing and [130]useful, is taken up by the different parts of the body, and the rest is thrown out by the lungs, the bowels, the bladder and the skin. When we draw air into our lungs, the noxious and useless portions of the blood in the lungs, combine with it, and are then sent out of our lungs. The bowels and bladder also, eject a portion of useless matter from the body. But the chief labour of relieving the body from useless matter in the blood, is done by the skin.

If you could look at the skin through a microscope, you would see the little mouths of the blood-vessels all over the skin, which are constantly pouring out this useless matter from the blood. If, in a warm day, you bring a cool mirror near your skin, yet not so as to touch it, you will see a thin dew, or vapour, settle on the mirror. This is the invisible exhalation, which is constantly coming out from the mouths of the small blood-vessels, all over the skin. Experiments have often been made, to find out how much matter is thus thrown out of the body by the skin, and it is found that in a grown person, it is never less than a pound and a quarter in twenty-four hours, and most men that have [131]experimented say that it is much more. But all agree, that the skin throws out more of the useless and noxious matter from the body, than the lungs, bladder and bowels all together.

You can now understand the evil done by sitting with wet feet, or going into cold and damp air without proper covering. Cold always operates to make the skin shrink up, and the little mouths of the blood-vessels are thus closed, so that the skin cannot perform its office properly. In consequence of this, the blood is not relieved of its noxious matter. The effect of this, is sometimes one thing, and sometimes another. Sometimes, stopping the action of the skin produces a fever, and then the body is tormented with restlessness, pain and heat. Sometimes, when the skin stops its labours, the other organs try to do double duty, to relieve the body. In this case, either the bowels or bladder become affected and discharge profusely, or the lungs accumulate a great quantity of this useless matter, which is coughed up in the form of phlegm. Sometimes the head and throat are affected, and water runs from the eyes and nose, while the lungs also cough up phlegm. [132]What is commonly called a cold in the head, or a cold on the lungs, is caused by the shutting up of the blood-vessels of the skin by cold, so that the lungs, eyes, and head are obliged to perform a part of the offices that the skin ordinarily performs.

Now when a person is labouring by a fire, or at washing or ironing, the blood is made to circulate much faster, and the noxious matter is thrown out more abundantly. At such times the matter thrown out by the skin becomes visible in the form of drops of sweat. Of course the more of this matter is to be thrown out by the skin, the more dangerous it is to have the openings of the skin shrunk up by cold. Therefore, it is very important for persons who labour, to take very great care not to allow themselves to be chilled when in a state of perspiration. Wetting the feet often produces the same effect on the body, as chilling the skin in a perspiration. You understand now, why it is that I earnestly entreat you, never to go out and stand in the cold, when you are in a perspiration, and always to be careful to dress warm whenever you go out doors for any [133]purpose, and never to sit with damp feet. One single act of carelessness in these respects, may bring on a fever, or a bowel complaint, or an affection of the lungs, or liver, or eyes, or head, that may lay you up for months, or even end your life. What I have told you about the construction of the skin, shows the importance of another piece of advice I would give you. Do you know, that we are almost the only well informed nation in the world, that do not frequently wash the body all over? There were some nations in old times, that knew that this was so important to health and comfort, that they always had public baths made, so that rich and poor might bathe every day without expense. And in many countries, the best informed people would not think of going two days without washing the whole of their bodies, any more than you would think of going so long, without washing your face and hands. And the reason of this is, that the skin is interrupted in its duties by any accumulation of matter upon it. The little mouths of the blood-vessels must be kept open and free, or they cannot fully perform their offices. Now, as the [134]skin throws out at least a pound and a half a day, of this useless and noxious matter, where the clothing comes tight to the skin, it cannot all pass off freely, and a part is deposited on the s............