Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1856-04-05
THE SKIN AND ITS TREATMENT.

The skin is as exacting upon us as the rest of
the body. A pOlity Of healthy skins can be main
tanned only by vast demands upon our industry
and science. Everything about US must be clean
skinned, or half our personal washing is wasted.
The skin leads outwards by f~orceful channels,
and will not be stopped, even at great distances,
without its carnations recoiling upon the health;
it allures surrounding influences inwards from
equal lengths, and will not be deprived of them.
or supplied with them IN a malignant form, with
out whitening Or diseasing the organization.
The effects of climate and circumstances upon
the skin are MT less remarkable than obvious for
it sympathizes directly with the places and spaces
around it, and takes its complexion from them.
The inhabitants of the regions Of gusty winds,
have weather heated faces, and lines as of the tenn
pest, blown bowling into their skins. Mountain
races, have stony or granite features, as OF the
rocks abandoned to the barren air. The people of
moist and marshy places lock watcry and lympha.
THO. Those where extremes of temperature pre-.
prevail for long periods, are leathern and shrivel.
led, as though their skins had given up the contest
with nature, and died upon their faces. These
events show how much the skin is Influenced bv
the circumstances about it.
1t is equally certain that the surfaces Of the
body, represented by the skin, arc the medium OF
contagion, which is the railway Of public disease.
For this organ, true TO itself, offers a sympathetic
plane on which the health and disease of the COM
munity also tend to universal oneness of diffusion.
There is no breach of continuity on the surface of
mankind, but the skin of the poor joins to that
Of the rich, and epidemics run without ceremony
from the one to the other; only more sparse as
they spot the palaces, because clcanncss is more
studied there.
After the stomach has taken care of nouli,h-
ment, and the luags have looked to our breath. the
skin has to provide for them both in a kind of
infnitessimal sense. For it supplies US with food
and disburders us of excretiOns; though both its
I nlintaDts at,l roia,tinpc nma r., Al. =
visible; it also washes itself in air and keeps
itself in motion; the former by itself, the latter
under the superintendancc of the lungs. The
skin is the theatre Of influences; the other DREAMS
We have mentioned deal with more palpable stuff.
There IS a corresponding delicacy in the question
of the public and private health Of the skin.
Great, however, is the plainness, and eonaIlv
great the mystery of cleanliness. 1t is one of hose
terms that will hardly be chained to a physical
sense; we no sooner begin to treat it than its buds
like Anron's rod, and blossoms into morals. Ere.
quent ablutions wash away the Sordes of our
3od.es, open our pores, enable US to emanate with
freedom, and with freedom to take what the otn,os.
phere can yield US. The model and mirror of
these effects is presented in our daily washinps.
which makes us. feel clean. This clean feeling is
the basis OF correct perceptions. 1t gives selcre.
spect which marks us out from the things ahout
as; makes US judicial among our associates; e,tab
fishes a ring of healthy sentiment around us. and
"tN"c Cll vs. anu other thlngS, and enables us 10
discriminate between clean and uuclean in what
ever seeks to enter our feelings, or aspires to stay
there. In short, it places a Gordon of pure lie
around our bodies, as u troupe Of angels alouud the
hed and before TIE path of the faithful. Between
the life thus Whitley washen, and its objects. moth
ing lntervenos to hinder immediate Judgment and
action, so far as The surface is concerned. The
light OF the sky, and the vigor of the man. kiss
upon the skin and cement a covenant of iustice in
which every predominance is conceded to the lord.
ly organization.
On the other hand, dirt upon the skin is not
merely dirt, but dirty feeling; and the latter il M
sooner set up than it travels soulwards. The skin
is gwen among other ends, Il viyacious sentinel 10
prevent the entrance into us of whatever il allan
ana impure. The purity of the sentinel is of the
greatest value to the exercise of his functions.-
Dirty feeling does not know dirt when il comes
but is Cribed by it, and lets it pass the barrier -
Hence an unclean skin. besides adulterating the
feelings. admits a material adulteration to tho M
CANS Furthermore, by ~clogging the pores, II nre.
vents the beloved dirt from escaping outward. !,
until at length tho body, crusted over with itself
aorogates the skin functions aud finds another and
7iolont eruption in disease. For nobody can s,an