The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-01-03
CLOTHING AND THE ATMOSPHERE.

A recent work by DR.. Max Won Petten-
koier, Professor Of Hygiene at the Uni
versity of Munich, offers some seasonable
instructions in regard to the quality of
the clothes we wear and the materials Of
which they are made, as they relate TO
The air and are affected by it. With re-
gard to material and colors, this author
says:
when exposed to luminous heat, the
materials of our clothing do not show very
great differences, but in experimenting on
shirtings of different colors, the following
result was obtaiued: When white absorb
ed 100, pale straw color absorbed 1902, dark
yellow 40, light green 155, dark green
lGS, Turkish red 165, light blue 1913, black
2OS. In the shade these differences nearly
vanish. krieger, in experimenting on tin
cylinders filled with warm water, has found
| that double tight covering by the same
material does not retard the heat loss much
more than single one; but when the out
CT air was loose it retarded it very much.
From this follows the practical truth. that
we can produce very different effect by
the same number of clothes according to
their make
The thoughts Which follow, on ventila-
ton in clothing. are not exactly new, but
they deserve more attention than they
commonly receive:
(.pn 1lx,x al, 81
sidered as an apparatus for keeping the
air from us. This conception is utterly
erroneous, and We can wear no garment
which does not allow of continual venti-
latinn Of our surface. Just those textures
which are most permeable to the air keep
us warmest ! have examined different
materials for their permeabili.y to air, and
taking the permeabilty of air passing
through flannel as 100, linen allowed So,
silk 40, buckskin IS, chamois IL, kid 1
part of air to pass through them. If the
above stated notion were correct, kid would
keep us 100 times, channels warmer by
half, than flannel. and so on, while every
one knows that it is quite the reverse
Dr. Won Pettenkofer says of furs:
s A fur is SO arranged that its fine hair
projecting into the air intercepts all the
heat which flows from the surface of the
body by radiation and conduction, and
distributes this heat through the air which
circulates between the single hair cyliu-
ders. Thus the air, however cold it may
be, reaches the nerves of our skin as a
warmed air. Furred animals in Winter,
when touched specifically, give very
cold sensation; it is only near the skin
that their hair feels warm. In a severe
cold, certainly little of our animal heat
comes as far as the points of the hair, from
which it would escape by radiation or con-
duction, as the current of air in the fur
cools the hair from its points towards it's
roots, and severe cold penetrates only a
little farther into the fur, without reaching
the skin of the same. This can take place
only at an exceedingly low temperature, or
when very cold air is in violent motion.
ln well-furrod animal the changes of
temperature in tie surrounding air only
change the ATTITUDES at the cold and warm
zones in the fur; the place where the
temperature OF the body and air equalize
each other moves between the roots aud
points of the hair, and for this reason a
furred animal is not warmer in Summer
than in Winter. In Summer its heat leaves
at the points, in Winter near the roots of
the hair