Part 9 (1/2)

After thirty or forty years of age the hair begins to turn gray. No medicine will prevent the hair from turning gray, and it is generally unwise to color the hair with a dye. There is poison in some of the mixtures sold to color the hair.

=The Care of the Hair.=--When the hair is uncombed, the whole person looks untidy. The hair should be combed carefully every morning and again made tidy before each meal. You should use as little water as possible to moisten the hair. The glands can be made to give out their hair oil by squeezing parts of the scalp between the fingers.

The scalp should be well cleansed with soap and warm water every three or four weeks. The hair should be dried quickly with a soft towel and by sitting in the sun or near a stove. One is likely to catch cold by going out of doors when the hair is wet. Hair oils and dandruff cures should not be used unless advised by a physician. Pinching and wrinkling the scalp twice weekly with the fingers makes the blood tubes grow larger and bring more food to the hair. It will also in many persons stop the hair from falling out and prevent dandruff and itching.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 48.--Photographs showing how keeping the hair tidy improves the appearance.]

Do not use the hair brush of another person or exchange hats with your companions. Unclean persons and those living or playing much with them often have among their hairs little creatures called _head lice_. They suck blood and cause constant itching. The doctor will tell any one how to get rid of them easily.

=Keeping the Skin Clean.=--The amount of dead matter carried out by the sweat on to the skin every day is equal to a ma.s.s as large as your thumb. Dust also works through the clothing and sticks fast to the moist skin. For this reason every one should wash the whole body once or twice each week. The feet should be washed oftener as they become more soiled.

Many persons take a bath every day. A cold bath taken just after rising in the morning wakes up the nerves, makes the heart work better, and gives health and strength to the whole body. Afterward, the body should be well rubbed with a coa.r.s.e towel. The bath may be taken by lying in a tub of water or by rubbing the body over quickly with a wet sponge. A hot bath is best for cleansing the skin. A warm bath makes one sleepy and should, therefore, be taken only at bedtime.

_The hands should always be well washed before handling food._ Persons neglecting to do this have caused much sickness because of the disease germs on their hands. One hundred and fifty persons were given typhoid fever in one city in Ma.s.sachusetts by a man who handled milk without was.h.i.+ng his hands. Dirt and disease are companions. You must be clean if you would be healthy.

=The Kidneys.=--The sweat glands do not take out of the blood one quarter as much waste matter as the kidneys. These are two bodies longer than the finger and more than twice as wide, and having the shape of a bean. One lies on either side of the backbone below the liver.

The blood coming to the kidneys is full of waste and dead matter picked up from all parts of the body. This is pa.s.sed out through the thin walls of the thousands of little blood tubes into the many tiny tubes of the kidneys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 49.--The blood tubes in a piece of skin as large as the head of a pin.]

Water is required to keep the body clean within as well as without.

For this reason you should drink more than a quart of water daily. A gla.s.s or two of water drunk a half hour before meals cleanses and rouses to action the digestive organs.

=Alcohol and the Skin.=--The skin of those who use much beer or whisky often becomes rough, red, and pimply. Any alcoholic drink is likely to injure the skin because it may hinder good digestion. The drunkard has a red nose and a dark-colored skin. This is because alcohol weakens the walls of the blood tubes and lets them become gorged with blood.

If a person takes a drink only once in a while, his face becomes red after each drink, and an hour or two later the effect of the alcohol pa.s.ses off. The blood tubes have squeezed up to their natural size.

=Alcohol and the Kidneys.=--Taking several gla.s.ses daily of even such weak alcoholic drink as beer often causes the kidneys to become sick.

Some of their working parts become changed to fat and some parts become hard. The cells which let the waste matter pa.s.s out of the blood get hurt by the poison of the alcohol so that they let some of the food also pa.s.s out of the blood.

PRACTICAL QUESTIONS

1. Name the two parts of the skin.

2. Give the three uses of the skin.

3. What is a sweat gland?

4. How much sweat is formed daily?

5. Of what use is the sweat?

6. How should the nails be cared for?

7. Tell what care should be given the hair.