MAN'S DIRTY CLOTHES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 298, 17 December 1930, Page 6

MAN'S DIRTY CLOTHES.

He sends his underclothing to the wash, but he buys coat and trousers of dark cloth so that they "won't show the dirt." Dirt, however, is just as bad when you don't see it. Man's habits need (.-leaning up, says "Good Health." "Personal cleanliness is for human beings a very recent acquisition. Most lower animals keep themselves clean. Note how meticulously tidy is the house cat. The cave man revelled in dirt, and so did every European in the Middle Ages. The leather breeches and unshorn sheepskin shirts worn alike by peasants, proprietors arid high Church officials were never washed. The Russian peasant still goes into winter quarters in November, and never thinks of bathing until he comes out in the spring. In some parts of Spain two baths suffice for a lifetime, one by the midwife, the other by the undertaker. The Finnish mother sews her children up in the fall, and provides for a- change of clothes in the spring. The writer once found such a sewed-up child suffering from smallpox in a New York tenement. The mother refused to have the clothing removed because she knew the health officer would destroy it.

"But we arc beginning to cultivate more cleanly habits. The wearing of underclothing, which may be frequently changed, protects our outer clothing from soiling with body wastes; but our outer garments, especially those of men, store up accumulations of germs and dirt from a great variety of sources. The dark colours conceal the dirt, which brushing and even the dry cleaners do not remove. Women wear lighter colours and washable fabrics and change often, and so their garments are cleaner. Women wear much less clothing than men, and so suffer much less from over-heating, especially in warm weather, a common cause of summer colds and sinusitis. Of course the cold does not come directly from the overheating. A cold, a sinusitis, is an acute infection. * The germs are already on the spot, but asleep, so to speak. Over-heating and afterchilling lower the resistance and awaken the germs to activity.

"The heavy dark clothing worn by men is most uncleanly and unhygienic. The universal excuse for dark coloure is that light colour/3 show dirt. That is a good reason for choosing light colours. The dirt is there when it does not show. Dark shades are a camouflage for not only dirt but gernis and disease. Dark and heavy clothing not only accumulates dirt and germs but excludes from the skin the beneficent solar rays, the greatest of all disinfectant and vitalising agents. Thin, or loosely Woven, white fabrics permit the sun's rays to reach the surface of the body. A men's dress reform movement is needed. Who will start it? White garments for both winter and summer. Porous fabrics that will permit contact of light and air with the body surface and allow emanations from the skin to escape and perspiration to dry quickly, and less clothing to burden the body and cause over-heating and after-chilling. The modern woman has. shocked our sensibilities by casting off nearly all her nether garments, but appears to have gained something of the same hardiness enjoyed by the barelegged Highlander of Scotland and the mountaineers of Greece. Will the women allow their husbands and brothers to dress as scantily as they do themselves? From a health standpoint it seems that tho clothes we wear the better."