Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/101

Rh like, placed specially on the chest, are useless; and the plaster is worse than useless, since it checks the functions of the skin over a considerable surface, and is soon dirty.

There is one modern article of attire on which a word of caution must be said, because its bad effects are unmistakable. I must warn all, but the consumptive in particular, against wearing what are called water-proof India-rubber coats. The healthy man may tolerate one of these garments; the consumptive, never. It loads the under-clothes with moisture; it gives a cold envelope to the surface; it produces chill; and, by checking the cutaneous function, it throws a double amount of work on lungs already failing under their ordinary duties.

Is it necessary to more than condemn those abominations of female attire, corsets? I hope not. But not less injurious than the corset is the practice of placing a strap or belt round the waist, tightly buckled. In the old times, the ascetics wore the tight strap as a penance for sin. This was surely the true and original function of the article. Now it is a penance worn for society in a foolish mood.

The Hours of Rest of the Consumptive Patient should be regulated mainly by the Absence of the Sun.—If exercise is important to the consumptive patient during the day, a due allowance of sleep is equally necessary during the night. The natural hours of sleep are from sunset to sunrise, and it is the business of the consumptive to make Nature his oracle. Shakespeare has happily said that sleep is the "chief nourisher of life's feast," and Menander held that it was "a remedy for every curable disease." The great use of sleep truly is to renovate; for in the sleeping state the formative processes go on most actively. Metcalfe has well defined the difference between exercise and sleep by saying that "during exercise the expenditure of the body exceeds the income; whereas during sleep the income exceeds the expenditure."

It is obvious that to the consumptive person nothing can be more important than that the income should alternately and at natural seasons exceed the expenditure; and it is quite remarkable how much alleviated all the symptoms of consumption are when sleep is insured. The rule I have laid down regarding the hours for sleep is imperative for many reasons: First, because in all seasons the actual amount of rest required by the natural man is pointed out by the course of the sun. Second, because to extend the day by artificial lights, making a little sun out of a gas-lamp or candle, is to feed that lamp with a part of the breathing store of the air, and vitiate the atmosphere. Third, because, though artificial light is injurious, the pure sunlight is, on the contrary, of the greatest worth in the acts of vitality.

Thus, to fulfill the natural law regulating the times of sleep, to escape from the artificial light, and to obtain the advantage of all the sunlight that can be secured, the consumptive patient should make the sun his fellow-workman.