e liver,
the lungs, the stomach, digestion, absorption, circulation and
perspiration, are all hindered. And even so far as the various internal
organs of the body _are_ active, they act at a great disadvantage. The
blood which they "work up," is bad blood, and must be so, as long as the
lungs do not have free play. Hence may and do arise all sorts of
diseases; especially diseases of OBSTRUCTION; and such as are often very
difficult of removal.

What can be a more pitiable sight than some modern girls going home from
school or church in winter? Thinly clad, the blood is all driven from
the surface upon the internal organs, and what remains is so loaded with
carbon, which the lungs ought but cannot discharge, that her skin has a
leaden hue; her teeth chatter; her very heart is chilled in her panting,
frozen bosom; she cannot run, and if she could, she must not, for it
would be vulgar! Every mother should shrink from the sight of such a
picture.

CHAPTER V.

CLEANLINESS.

Physiology of the human skin. Of checking perspiration. Diseases thus
produced. "Dirt" not "healthy." How the mistake originated. "Smell of
the earth." Effect of uncleanliness on the morals. Filthiness produces
bowel complaints. Changing dress for the sake of cleanliness.

No mother will ever pay that attention to cleanliness which its
importance to health and happiness demands, till she perceives its
necessity. And she will never perceive that necessity till she has
studied attentively the machinery of the human frame--and especially its
wonderful covering.

The skin is pierced with little openings or _pores_, so numerous that
some have reckoned them at a million to every square inch. At all
events, they are so small that the naked eye can neither distinguish nor
count them; and so numerous, that we cannot pierce the skin with the
finest needle without hitting one or more of them.

When we are in perfect health, and the skin clean, a gentle moisture or
mist continually oozes through these pores. This process is called
_perspiration_; and the moisture which thus escapes, the _matter_ of
perspiration.

Perspiration may be checked in two ways. 1. by filth on the skin; 2. by
what is commonly called taking cold--for taking cold essentially
consists in chilling the skin to such a degree as to stop, for some
time, the escape of this moisture. Most persons have doubtless observed,
that in the first stages of a cold, they frequently have a very