Page:Caplin - Health and Beauty1864 - 075.png

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Clothing from Twelve to Eighteen Years.
75

conductor of heat, it lessens the liability of taking cold; when, however, the skin is so susceptible as to render it painful to wear flannel, calico must be substituted. Drawers also should be worn, to keep up the circulation in the lower extremities, and the feet be kept warm by the use of woollen stockings during the winter season. Wide elastic garters, such as those which we have invented, that do not obstruct the capillary circulation, should be substi­tuted for the old, unyielding strings, and the boots should not be laced so tight as to stop the supply of blood to the feet, as it causes them to swell in sum­mer, and increases the liability to chilblains in the winter. When these general rules are attended to, the clothing will be elegant, and always conducive to health.

It may perhaps be asked why we have confined our observations almost entirely to girls; and whe­ther boys are not also affected by deviations from the erect posture of a similar kind? In early life the same causes which affect the one operate also to the detriment of the other; and we accordingly find that boys are equally subject to poking of the head, roundness of the shoulders, contraction of the chest, and curvature of the spine, as girls at that particular epoch. Boys' dresses at that period differ little