The teacher's manual of lessons on domestic economy - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 Excerpt: ...and sweat (fig. p. 180). This is passed out to the outer skin to be dried by the air, or removed by washing. How necessary they are to life is seen in the fact that if the skin of an animal be varnished, so as to block up these small "safety-valves," the creature will soon perish. So in a human being, in states of high fever, when the skin is dry from the want of perspiration, the heat of the body increases inside. Then the temperature of the blood rises, and often it is not long before death follows. There is thus always only a narrow borderland between life and death, as the healthy temperature of the blood is 98 F., and that of high fever is only 104 F., or six degrees increase only. But if the sweat tubes become choked up at their pores, or openings in the skin, the temperature rises from the stopping of perspiring. The blood at the same time becomes fouled with the waste matter which should pass off with the perspiration. The skin, unable to do its proper share of work in getting rid of waste matters, throws its task on its partners, the lungs and kidneys. The latter of course suffer in turn from doing their own tasks and that of their "sleeping partner" as well; and thus health breaks down partly from want of soap and water. 85. TOILET SOAPS. SPECIAL INFORMATION FOR THE TEACHER. 1. Ingredients in Soap.--We have seen that soaps used for washing clothes consist of a combination of an alkali (soda, potash, &c.) with the fatty acids contained in tallow, fat, oil, &c. 2. Toilet Soaps.--But some soaps, such as soft-soap, are too "irritating" to be used on the skin for toilet purposes. Every soap that has an excess of soda in it, is thus injurious from the action of the alkali on the skin. To render the toilet soaps more...