Talks About Health by D. Lewis, M. D.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 25, 1862

Talks About Health.

By D. Lewis, M. D.

A WORD ABOUT DRESS.

ONE of the gravest mistakes in our dress is the very thin covering of our arms and legs. No physiologist can doubt that the extremities require as much covering as the body. A fruitful source of disease: of congestion in the head, chest, and abdomen, is found in the nakedness of the arms and legs, which prevents a fair distribution of the blood.

A young lady has just asked me what she can do for her very thin arms. She says she is ashamed of them. I felt of them through the thin lace covering, and found them freezing cold. I asked her what she supposed would make muscles grow? Exercise, she replied. Certainly, but exercise makes them grow only by giving them more blood. Six months of vigorous exercise would do less to give those naked, cold arms circulation, than would a single month were they warmly clad.

The value of exercise depends upon the temperature of the muscles. A cold gymnasium may be considered unprofitable. Its temperature should be between sixty and seventy, or the limbs should be warmly clothed. I know that our servant girls and blacksmiths, by constant and vigorous exercise, acquire large, fine arms, in spite of their nakedness. And if young ladies will labor as hard from morning till night as do these useful classes, they may have as fine arms, but even then it is doubtful if they would get rid of their congestions in the head, lungs, and stomach without more dress upon the arms and legs.

Perfect health depends upon perfect circulation. Every living thing that has the latter, has the former. Put your hand under your dress upon your body. Now put your hand upon your arm. If you find the body warmer than the arm, you have lost the equilibrium of circulation. The head has too much blood, producing headache or sense of fullness; or the chest has too much blood, producing cough, rapid breathing, pain in the side, or palpitation of the heart; or the stomach has too much blood, producing indigestion; or the liver has too much blood, producing some disturbance; or the bowels have too much blood, producing constipation or diarrhea. Any or all of these difficulties are temporarily relieved by immersion of the feet or hands in hot water, and they are permanently relieved by such dress and exercise of the extremities as will make the derivation permanent.

Again I say, the extremities require as much clothing as the body. Women should dress their arms and legs with one or two thicknesses of knit wollen garments which fit them. The absurdity of loose flowing sleeves and wide-spread skirts, I will not discuss.

Do you ask why the arms and legs may not become accustomed to exposure like the face? I answer, God has provided the face with an immense circulation, because it must be exposed.

A distinguished physician of Paris declared, just before his death, "I believe that during the twenty-six years I have practiced my profession in this city, twenty thousand children have been borne on the cemeteries a sacrifice to the absurd custom of naked arms." When in Harvard, many years ago, I heard the distinguished Dr. J. C. Warren say, "Boston sacrifices five hundred babies every year by not clothing their arms." Those little arms should have thick, knit, woolen, warm sleeves, extending from the shoulder to the hand.—*D. Lewis, M. D.