Hints to working people about personal cleanliness.

  • Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hints to working people about personal cleanliness. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    MANCHESTER AND SALFORD I i } j SANITARY ASSOCIATION. TRACT SERIES, No. 4. HINTS TO WORKING PEOPLE ABOUT PERSONAL CLEANLINESS. i In Tract No. 2 you have had a few “ Hints about the Houses you live ' in but there is another subject which equally deserves your care. i You must admit that, in general, the wealthier classes pay far greater ' attention than you do to personal cleanliness. Why is it that they do j so ? Mainly, because they know that it conduces in a high degree to I health, comfort, and respectability. i As medical men will tell you, much sickness and many troublesome 1 disorders have their origin dnectly in filthiness of person. And a little thought will show you that this is but natural. The skin which covers the body has many more important uses ! than people generally imagine. Anatomists have well called it “ the safety-valve of life and health.’' Consider only one of its offices. You cam hardly fail to be aware, that it is constantly, b}^ night and by day, giving off something in the form of perspiration or sweat, either visible or invisible. If you need convincing of this, you have merely to hold ; your hand close to a looking-glass or a piece of highly-polished metal, j and you will find that it soon becomes dimmed with vapour. The quantity of matter perspired by an ordinary-sized man in twenty-four j I hours amounts to not less than betweeii two and three pounds; and i you can easily understand that if this waste matter, which has done its i work and become unfit for further use, is not allowed to escape freely, j it will be kept in the blood, and, by rendering it poisonous, sow in it i the seeds of disease. When the breathing of the lungs is stopped, you need not be told how deadly, in a short time, the consequences are ; the blood becomes i