Part 2
=Thirst.=—Water is continually passing away from the body. The dry air entering the lungs by respiration absorbs it from the moist surface of the pulmonary membranes. A large portion is lost by evaporation from the skin, upon which it is poured out by millions of little sewers, the perspiratory ducts, for the purpose of washing away impurities from the system. The kidneys remove a considerable quantity, with poisonous excrementitious elements in solution. Through still other channels water is removed, aggregating, in all, the amount of five pints in twenty-four hours in the average individual. This loss must be made good, in order to preserve the requisite fluidity of the blood; and nature expresses the demand for water by thirst.
Some people rarely drink liquid of any kind. Others consume several pints in a day. The nature of an individual’s occupation will in a measure determine the amount of drink required. Stokers, glass-blowers, and others whose vocation necessitates profuse perspiration, require more water than others. It will be noticed, moreover, that the character of the diet has much to do with the demand for drink. Those who subsist mostly upon fruits and grains, and other vegetable productions, avoiding the use of stimulating and irritating condiments, require little or no addition to the juices contained in their food. Those who pursue an opposite course in dietetics, using largely animal food, salt, pepper, spices, and other condiments, and perhaps taking a little wine or something stronger for their stomach’s sake, are under the necessity of taking considerable quantities of fluid in addition to that provided by their food.
Water is the only substance which will quench thirst. Beverages which contain other substances are useful as drinks just in proportion to the amount of water which they contain, and are unwholesome just in proportion as the added elements are injurious.
=Regulation of Temperature.=—The evaporation of water from the surface of the human body is one of the most admirable adaptations of means to ends exhibited in animal life. All of the vital activities in constant operation in the body occasion the production of heat. Sometimes the amount of heat is greater than is needed, and so great as would destroy the vitality of certain tissues if it were not speedily conducted away. By evaporation of water from the skin, this is accomplished. When external heat is great, perspiration is more active than when it is less, and thus the temperature of the body is maintained at about 100° F. under all circumstances. By this wonderful provision of nature, man is enabled to exist under the great extremes of heat and cold presented in the frigid regions at the poles and the torrid climate of the equator. By the aid of clothing, human beings have survived a continued temperature of 60° to 100° below zero; and, by the protective influence of evaporation, an average of 100° above zero has been endured in tropical climes. For short periods, so great a degree of heat as 350° F., or even 600° has been borne with impunity in exceptional instances. In these cases the extreme heat which would otherwise reduce the body to a cinder in a few moments is rapidly conducted away by evaporation without occasioning any damage.
=Depuration.=—Every thought, every movement, the most delicate vital action, occasions the destruction of a portion of the living tissues, which is thus converted into dead matter, and becomes poisonous. Many kinds of poisonous substances are produced within the body in this way. Some of them are very deadly, and must be hurried out of the system with great rapidity, as _urea_ and _cholesterine_. Here the marvelous utility of water is again displayed. It dissolves these poisons wherever it comes in contact with them, and then as it is brought by the current of the circulation to the proper organs—the kidneys, liver, skin, lungs, and other emunctories—it is expelled from the body, still holding in solution the animal poisons which are so rapidly fatal if retained.
=Cleanliness.=—The skin is one of the most important depurating organs of the whole body. From each of its millions of pores constantly flows a stream laden with the poisonous products of disintegration. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind these non-volatile poisons, which are deposited as a thin film over the whole surface of the skin. As each day passes, the process continues, and the film thickens. If the skin is moderately active, three or four days suffice to form a layer which may be compared to a thin coating of varnish or sizing. The accumulation continues to increase, unless removed, and soon undergoes further processes of decomposition. It putrefies, rots, in fact, and develops an odor characteristic and quite too familiar, though anything but pleasant, being at once foul, fetid, putrid, pungent, uncleanly, and unpardonable.
But the offense to the nose is not the extent of the evil. The unclean accumulation chokes the mouths of the million little sewers which should be engaged in eliminating these poisons, and thus obstructs their work. Being retained in contact with the skin, some portions are reabsorbed, together with the results of advancing decay, thus repoisoning the system, and necessitating their elimination a second time.
Here water serves a most useful end if properly applied. It is unexcelled as a detergent, and by frequent application to the skin will keep it wholly free from the foul matters described. The necessity for frequent ablutions is well shown by the fact that nearly two pounds of a poison-laden solution, the perspiration, is daily spread upon the surface of the body. It is not an uncommon occurrence to meet with people who have never taken a general bath in their lives. Imagine, if possible, the condition of a man’s skin, at the age of seventy or eighty years, which has never once felt the cleansing effects of a thorough bath!
One of the most serious effects of this accumulation of filth is the clogging of the perspiratory ducts. Their valve-like orifices become obstructed very easily, and depuration is then impossible. It is not wonderful that so many people have torpid skins. The remedy is obvious, and always available.
=How to Make the Skin Healthy.=—A man who has a perfectly healthy skin is nearly certain to be healthy in other respects. In no way can the health of the skin be preserved but by frequent bathing. A daily or tri-weekly bath, accompanied by friction, will keep the skin clean, supple, and vigorous. There is no reason why the whole surface of the body should not be washed as well as the face and hands. The addition of a little soap is necessary to remove the oily secretion deposited upon the skin.
A lady of fashion, in enumerating the means for preserving beauty, says: “Cleanliness, my last recipe (and which is applicable to all ages), is of most powerful efficacy. It maintains the limbs in their pliancy, the skin in its softness, the complexion in its luster, the eyes in their brightness, the teeth in their purity, and the constitution in its fairest vigor. To promote cleanliness, I can recommend nothing preferable to bathing. The frequent use of tepid baths is not more grateful to the sense than it is salutary to the health and to beauty.... By such means, the women of the East render their skins softer than that of the tenderest babe in this climate.” “I strongly recommend to every lady to make a bath as indispensable an article in her house as a looking-glass.”
When the foul matters which ought to be eliminated by the skin and quickly removed from the body are allowed to remain unremoved, the skin becomes clogged and inactive, soon loses its natural luster and color, becoming dead, dark, and unattractive. When bathing is so much neglected, it is no marvel that paints, powders, lotions, and cosmetics of all sorts, are in such great demand. A daily bath, at the proper temperature, is the most agreeable and efficient of all cosmetics.
=Bathing Protects against Colds.=—It is an erroneous notion that bathing renders a person more liable to “take cold, by opening the pores.” Colds are produced by disturbance of the circulation, and not by opening or closing the pores of the skin. Frequent bathing increases the activity of the circulation in the skin, so that a person is far less subject to chilliness and to taking cold. An individual who takes a daily bath has almost perfect immunity from colds, and is little susceptible to changes of temperature. Colds are sometimes taken after bathing, but this results from some neglect of the proper precautions necessary to prevent such an occurrence, which are carefully stated elsewhere in this work.
=Aristocratic Vermin.=—Doubtless, not a few of those very refined and fastidious people who spend many hours in the application of all sorts of lotions and other compounds to the face and hands, for the purpose of beautifying those portions of the skin exposed to view—while neglecting as persistently those parts of the skin protected from observation—would be very much surprised to learn the true condition of the unwashed portions of their cutaneous covering. They instinctively shrink with disgust from the sight of a vermin-covered beggar, in whose cuticle burrows the _acarus scabiei_ (itch-mite), while troops of larger insects are racing through his tangled locks and nibbling at his scaly scalp. It is quite possible that many a fair “unwashed” would faint with fright if apprized of the fact that her own precious covering is the home of whole herds of horrid looking parasites which so nearly resemble the itch-mite as to be at least very near relatives, perhaps half-brothers or cousins. The name of this inhabitant of skins unwashed is as formidable as the aspect of the creature, though it does not require a microscope to display its proportions, as does the latter; scientists call it _demodex folliculorum_.
The _demodex_ makes himself at home in the sebaceous follicles, where he dwells with his family. Here the female lays her eggs and rears her numerous progeny, undisturbed by the frictions of any flesh-brush, and only suffering a very transient deluge at very long intervals, if such a casualty ever happens. In studying the structure of these little parasites, we have found several tenants occupying a single follicle, pursuing their domestic operations quite unmolested by any external disturbance.
The _demodex_ has been transplanted from the human subject to the dog; and it is found that the new colony thrives very remarkably, and soon produces a disease apparently identical with that known as “mange.”
We have not space to describe in detail these savage little brutes, with their eight legs, armed with sharp claws, bristling heads, sharp lancets for puncturing and burrowing into the skin, and their powerful suckers for drawing the blood of their victims. We only care to impress upon the mind of the reader the fact that neglect of bathing and friction of the skin is sure to encourage the presence of millions of these parasites, and that the only remedy is scrupulous cleanliness of the whole person. Like their relatives, the itch-mite, they do not thrive under hydropathic treatment, and are very averse to soap and water. The best way to get rid of them is to drown them out. They do not produce the irritation which characterizes the presence of the itch insect, so that this evidence of their presence is wanting. But they are sure to be present in a torpid, unhealthy, unwashed skin, no matter how delicate or fastidious its possessor.
=Prevention of Disease.=—Neglecting to keep the skin active and vigorous by frequent ablutions is one of the most prolific causes of nearly all varieties of skin diseases, which are too often aggravated by gross dietetic habits. The relation between the cutaneous function and that of the kidneys is so intimate that neglect of the kind mentioned, resulting as it must in obstruction of function, is a very common cause of most dangerous disorders of the renal organs. Inactivity of the skin is also very commonly associated with dyspepsia, with rheumatism, gout, hysteria, and other nervous derangements. It is also a not uncommon cause of bronchial and pulmonary affections. It is quite evident, then, that the proper and most efficient means of preventing these diseases is to maintain the functional vigor of the skin by the proper application of water.
The value of water as a prophylactic, or preventive, of disease, was recognized by the ancients, and the bath was employed by them to an extent which has never been equaled in modern times. The great Hebrew lawgiver, Moses, enjoined upon his followers the most scrupulous cleanliness, making bathing a part of their religious duties. His example was followed by the ingenious founder of Mohammedanism, who required his disciples to bathe before each of their five daily prayers. Among the Greeks, and especially the temperate Spartans, the bath was regarded as one of the most essential means of securing physical health. Daily ablutions were practiced by them, every person participating in the bath, from the newborn babe to the oldest inhabitant. The Romans cultivated bathing to a remarkable extent, making it a luxury rather than the dreaded penance which many moderns seem to regard it.
=Modern Neglect of the Bath.=—The most celebrated physicians, from Hippocrates down to Galen, Celsus, Boerhaave, and a host of more modern physicians, have agreed in eulogizing the bath as an invaluable means for preserving the health. Notwithstanding this fact, it seems that as civilization and enlightenment have advanced, the importance of the bath has been increasingly disregarded. The magnificent public baths of the Romans were neglected as that empire declined, until they were finally destroyed. Michelet, a historian of some note, tells us that for a thousand years during the Dark Ages the bath was unknown in Europe. This fact alone is in his opinion sufficient to account for the terrible plagues and pestilences of that period. A modern writer declares that in Spain the religious instincts of the people have become so perverted that it is considered sacrilege for a woman to bathe more than once in her life, which is upon the eve of her marriage. In more enlightened countries, it is to be hoped that the condition of the feminine cuticle is not quite so bad as this; but another writer, an Englishman, asserts that a large proportion of his countrymen “never submitted themselves to an entire personal ablution in their lives, and many an octogenarian has sunk into his grave with the accumulated dirt of eighty years upon his skin.” American customs in this respect are not much better than the English; but it is gratifying to know that a very perceptible improvement is becoming evident in both countries. Our intercourse with Oriental nations and barbarians has taught us wholesome lessons in the care of the person. There is scarcely a savage tribe to be found in the deepest jungles of tropical Africa the members of which do not pay more attention to the preservation of a clean and healthy skin than the average American or Englishman.
=Bathing a Natural Instinct.=—All nature attests the importance of the bath. The rain is a natural shower bath in which all vegetation participates, and gains refreshment. Its invigorating influence is seen in the brighter appearance, more erect bearing, and fresher colors, of all plants after a gentle rain. The flowers manifest their gratitude by exhaling in greater abundance their fragrant odors. Dumb animals do not neglect their morning bath. Who has not seen the robin skimming along the surface of the lake or stream, dipping its wings in the cool waters, and laving its plumage with the crystal drops which its flapping pinions send glittering into the air? No school boy who has ever seen the elephant drink will forget how the huge beast improved the opportunity to treat himself to a shower bath, and perhaps the spectators as well, for he is very generous in his use of water.
If man’s instincts were not rendered obtuse by the perverted habits of civilization, he would value the bath as highly and employ it as freely as his more humble fellow-creatures, whose instinctive impulses have remained more true to nature, because they have not possessed that degree of intelligence which would make it possible for them to become so grossly perverted as have the members of the human race. Man goes astray from nature not because he is deficient in instinct, but because he stifles the promptings of his better nature for the purpose of gratifying his propensities.
PHYSIOLOGICAL EFFECTS.
Some of the relations of water to the living system have been considered in the preceding section. In the present connection we shall consider chiefly those effects resulting from the application of water to the human body in various ways which give to it its value as a remedial agent, though its therapeutical applications will be deferred to succeeding sections.
The effects of water upon the human system are the results of the operation of its physical properties in conjunction with the vital forces. As with all other agents, its effects may be either local, or general, according to the mode of application. Different effects are also produced according as the administration is internal or external. Many other modifying circumstances, as age, sex, and physical condition, affect the results in a greater or lesser degree.
Water affects the system through three different means; viz.:—
1. As a diluent;
2. By its solvent properties;
3. By modifying the general or local temperature of the body.
=1. Water as a Diluent.=—Water is received into the system by absorption, either through a mucous membrane, or through the skin. It usually enters through the medium of the stomach and intestinal canal. When received into the blood, it of course increases its volume, and produces an increased fullness of the circulatory vessels, which are never distended to their fullest extent, and hence allow room for change in the volume of their contents. The blood is necessarily rendered more fluid, and if previously in any degree viscid, its circulation is quickened by its dilution.
=2. The Effects of the Solvent Properties of Water.=—With the exception of air, water is the most transient of all the elements received into the body. It is eliminated by the skin, the lungs, the kidneys, and the intestines. By its solvent action, it dissolves the various poisonous products of the disintegration of the tissues. The volume of the blood being increased, more water comes in contact with the debris contained in any part, and, in consequence, the same undesirable products are more perfectly removed. The increased amount of excrementitious matter in solution is brought in contact with the various depurating organs, producing, notably, the following results:—
a. _An increase of the urinary excretion._ It is an important fact that this increase does not consist in the addition of water merely, or dilution, but that there is also an increased amount of _urea_, the chief excrementitious principle removed from the blood by the kidneys.
b. _An increase in the cutaneous excretion._ Water-drinking is one of the most efficient means of producing copious perspiration, which, as with the urinary excretion, is not a mere elimination of water, but is a real depurating process.
c. _Increased action of the intestinal mucous membrane._ Elimination from the mucous membrane of the intestinal track, which is an important organ of excretion, is also increased by drinking freely of pure water. The result of this increased action is not only to remove from the blood some of its foulest constituents, but to render more fluid the contents of the intestines, and thus tend to obviate that almost universal accompaniment of sedentary habits, constipation.
The removal of clogging matters from the system in this manner allows greater freedom of vital action, so that the activities of the body are quickened, and both waste and repair, disintegration and assimilation, are accelerated.
The use of water thus hastens all the vital processes by increasing the change of tissue. This result is of course chiefly obtained by employing it as a drink. The experiments of Liebig fully confirm this view. He expressly mentions the free use of water as one of the means of accelerating vital change. Prof. John B. Biddle, M. D., in his “Materia Medica,” states that “it promotes both the metamorphosis and construction of tissue,” from which fact he attributes to it valuable curative properties, as an alterative, when the removal of a morbid taint is desired, as in certain venereal diseases.
=3. Effects resulting from the Modification of Temperature.=—Perhaps the most important, certainly the most common, effects of water upon the living organism are those which result from its modifications of the temperature of the body in its various modes of application. These effects vary greatly according to the temperature, and the duration of the application. General and local applications also differ in their results.
It should be remarked that all of the effects of water are really the results of the vital resistance of the system in its attempts to remove abnormal or unusual conditions, or to accommodate itself to new circumstances.
Baths are divided into six classes, according to their temperature, as follows:—
1. Cold, 33° to 60° F. 2. Cool, 60° „ 70° 3. Temperate, 70° „ 85° 4. Tepid, 85° „ 92° 5. Warm, 92° „ 98° 6. Hot, 98° „ 112°
For the sake of simplicity, we will consider the effects of water applications under three heads; viz., cold, warm, and hot.
_The Cold Bath._—Under this head we will consider applications of all temperatures below 85° F. Cold or cool water, applied to any portion of the body, causes instant contraction of the small arteries of the part, through its influence upon the sympathetic or vasomotor system of nerves. So long as the application of the unusual temperature is continued, the vascular contraction is maintained, and the part seems nearly bloodless. If the cold is below 33° F., and is long continued, destruction of the tissues, by freezing, will result.
If a moderately cool or cold temperature is maintained for some time, the blood-vessels of the part are more or less permanently contracted, and the blood supply thus lessened. If, on the other hand, the application is very brief, the contraction of the vessels is only momentary, and is followed by a proportionate degree of relaxation, and a corresponding increase in the supply of blood to the part.
A very cold bath applied to any considerable portion of the body, and continued more than a very brief time, produces headache, dullness, sometimes nausea and vomiting, loss of sensibility, and other unpleasant and painful symptoms.
It is thus seen that the effects of cold are quite different—exactly opposite, in fact—as the application is a prolonged, or a brief one. The long application produces effects in some degree permanently sedative, while the brief application is followed by a momentary condition which may be termed shock, and which is usually followed very quickly by a reaction analogous to stimulation when produced in any other manner.