The Princeton union., 1922-10-26
PUT AWAY ''DUDS''
People Of Today Universally
Wearing Less Clothing.
Assertion Has Been Made That Health
Has Improved Since Knee Lengths
Supplanted Red FIanneIs.

How far this nation has departed
from the ways of it's sainted fathers
The pious old New England custom
of sewing up the children from fall to
spring in red flannel 'underclothes
may still be followed in remote and
God-fearing rural districts, but in
larger centers of population people
are wearing scandalously little pro
lection against the blasts Of winter.
And they're wearing less every
year! That the mOderns don't all per-
ish Of pneumonia is only another
proof that our grandmothers didn't
know as much about hygiene as they
thought they did. And everybody who
was ever stitched up for six months
in red flannel will admit that the boys
and girls of today are happier as well
as cleaner than those of the past.
With the modern girl exposing her
chest and knees to the blizzards and
the modern boy defying February
with loose, sleeveless and knee-length
lawn combinations it is curious to
realize that up to the last generation
IL was ACSCSodAV w VSetA
wool next to the skin, not only in
winter but also in summer.
Listen to YOuman's "Dictionary Of
Everyday Wants." published in 1884,
the New York Sun enjoins:
"Dress children warmly, woolen
" flannels next their person during the
whole year. BY every consideration
protect the extremities we'll. It is
ignorant barbarism that allows child
to have bare arms, legs and feet, even
in summer"
If the writer of that censorious dec
laration Is still alive, having failed to
expire from wearing wool next to his
hide, he must be terribly shocked at
the ignorant barbarism" of 1922, with
it's shameless display Of arms and
legs-or climbs" as he would prob
ably call the latter.
Those were the days when people
slept with their windows shut be-
cause they thought the night air was
"poisonous." Don't blame them too
much, for the doctors gave 'em that
dope about the night air. Yes. and
the poor old docs believed it them
selves.
It was the doctors, too, who sprang
that fuzzy one about wearing wool
next the skin summer and winter
And then when the victims got fever
ish the doctors would bleed 'em. "A
fear of cold, fear Of fresh air, a
fear of all nature was the keynote Of
medical practice in those good old
and exhausted wool wearers used to
die plentifully from pneumonia, then
called inflammation Of the lungs.
When that happened the doctors
shook their beaks and said the victim
must have sneaked out and breathed
some poisonous night air, or that he
must have left off his flannel night
cap, or neglected to take his blue pill
and black draft, or that he should
have called the doctor sooner and
thereby parted earlier with his first
quart of blood.
A New York doctor of today was
called to pneumonia case while an
Icy blizzard was blowing. The pa.
tient was a child. Her temperature
was very high. The windows were
shut tight.
"Open the windows top and bottom
as wide as you can," said the doctor
to the Mortified parents
And despite protests and domestic
Inconvenience the thing was done. In
response to the anxious forebodngs
Of the father the doctor said:
"Why, if you threw that child into
a snowbank she would melt the snow,
but it would do her more good than
HARM"
The child lived to be flapper with
hardly more clothes on her in winter
than in summer,