Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/214

 chilled and is liable to crack; when too abundant, the excessive warmth may cause an eruption and itchiness.

Cotton, linen, wool, and silk, are the prevailing materials employed. Of these, cotton is the cheapest and commonest. It is a good conductor of heat, and is the best adapted of any of them for warm climates and the hot season. Its fibres, however, are coarser and rougher than those of linen, and there are persons so sensitive to this slight difference, that they cannot wear it. Such must have recourse to linen.

This is notably less irritating. In dressing painful wounds the surgeon always prefers his lint of old linen rather than old cotton rags. But it is not a good conductor, and is therefore less adapted for summer than winter, for a warm climate than a cool one. When removed from the person a short time, and then replaced, as at bathing, it feels chilly and damp, which is much less the case with cotton.

For cold weather, wool or silk is preferable. Both these have one objection. That is, that on the slightest friction they disturb the electricity of the skin, cause a determination of blood to the surface, and sometimes thus lead to cutaneous eruptions. This holds good more particularly against silk, which, in point of texture, is much more agreeable than even the finest wool, and is also a worse conductor of heat. The latter is an advantage in winter.

Though this is true, we are decidedly of opinion