Page:Caplin - Health and Beauty1864 - 165.png

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Dress, and its Relation to Temperaments.
165

able things associated with it. The pallor of ill health; the blotches and pimples which advertise an obstructed perspiration, and in many cases the wrinkles of advancing age, will all disappear before the soothing influence of this agreeable and inex­pensive luxury. Milk baths, once so fashionable and highly esteemed, only clog the skin which they ought to cleanse.

Next to the treatment of the skin comes the question of what should be worn next to it; and this must depend upon several circumstances, such as the state of the epidermis itself, whether it be firm, healthy, or irritable; the natural heat of the body, dependent on the low or high state of the circulation; the state of the atmosphere, whether it be dry, humid cold or hot; and, finally, in some small measure upon the nature and fashion of the external garments. The general principle, however, which is applicable to all articles of clothing, and which renders them good or bad, is whether they are conductors or non-conductors of caloric from the quantity of moisture which they imbibe, either from the external air or from the emanations from the body, and from the facility with which they allow it to escape.

From these observations it will be clear that the