A Defence of the Colored Shirt.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXV, Issue 10016, 5 December 1908, Page 2 (Supplement)

A Defence of the Colored Shirt.

The cudgels in behalf of the colored shirt are being taken up by The Medical Times (New York, august). It will be remembered that The Lancet recently pointed out that colored cuffs show dirt less- readily than white, and that this, conduces to the wearing of soiled linen —an unhygienic habit, certainly. This somewhat mild condemnation has been quoted with considerable exaggeration, and commented upon with various degrees of jocularity. Says the editor of the journal above named:—"The Lancet is taking a dangerous course; next, we fear, it will object to ' the peek-a-boo waist—which would certainly be tantamount to journalistic suicide. Medical science, though so potent in other respects, cannot cope with aesthetics and the fashion. It never -could.' It has inveighed, for example against -such things as tight lacing and ■French heels until it has become black in the face and in imminent peril of apoplexy ; but for all its pains it has got only" a snap of the fingers in its face frcm fashion and it's votaries. The Lancet objects to the colored shirt on the score of hygiene. This garment is made up of dyed linen, the dye being often injurious: arid being colored, it conceals the dirt and perspiration longer than would the white .garment; it is sure to. be worn too long, 'thus greatly increasing the 'char.es of picking up bacteria.' All these attributes of the colored* shirt, believes The lancet, are inimical to health and there.'ore to be reprobated. These objections to' the colored shirt have raised a prodigious pother in journals of haberdashery and among comic writers at their wits' ends for 'something to write about in .thir> eilly season. One newspaper, for example, has beepme quite unduly heated about.its cervical region—an injudicious state of. mind.in these midsummer days. It vehemently denies that there is any danger whatever in bars and stripes and spot's, and 'will not agree that a man is running the least risk even when he affects a so]id"blue. On the whole, we fear that medical ' journalism, and especially our grandfatherly contemporary, has been coming it a little too strong lately on matters of hyjiene. Especially na u the subject of bacteria- best be given a little rest. A microscopic examination of the accumulations upon a Hair-brush was recently setforth in a "medical journal, and, of course, promptly quoted in a newspaper for the edification of its lay readers ; the horrendous report cited that something like a dozen varieties of bacteria were found. Well, what of it ! In our medical collegedays cur brilliant and enterprising professor in bacteriology investigated a scraping from the mouth of an obliging fellow student, a Texan. Twenty-six varieties of bacteria-were-found arid duly tabulated. The list was most startling and formidable, beginning with Bacillus prodigiosus. Yet-our Texan colleague, though rather_ too odoriferous for' agreeable juxtaposition, was- then in excellent health, and we make no doubt that he has been, and is, in the full enjoyment of this condition up to this hour. The New York Sun ironically observes- that everything we do, everything we eat, everything we wear, has been shown over and over again to be deadly. There is not a moment in our lives when we are free from danger. Our days have been elaborately examined and described • from the hour of rising to- bedtime ; and it has been plainly shown that all our acts are virtually suicidal. We go to the bath, and instantly are confronted with the dreadful danger of the sponge ; wherefore many timid souls have taken to loofahs and artificially constructed devices of rubber—all really nnneress.arv and none so comfortable as the sponge." Soap—water; these are dangerous, too, and full of mischief, yet people continue to use them in the most reckless way. ■ They brush their hair with the deadly hair-brush, they put on their fatal shoes and so forth; and then they go downstairs to a breakfast of poison. Even on the way_ downstairs they run a" frightful risk. Ave have no superintendent of stairs, and the builders are allowed to do as they please.: the result is-that the steps aveof no fixed height, and if you are in a strange house. ■ heaven help you ! It is hot the fault of the The Lancet, which has strongly urged ' the standardisation or staircases. We submit that a leaven of common sense is appropriate to hygiene as to all other tilings human. Besides, there is the general practitioner; if everything is going to be prevented, where will the poor man be?"