Water is required to keep the body clean within as well as without. For this reason you should drink more than a quart of water daily. A glass or two of water drunk a half hour before meals cleanses and rouses to action the digestive organs. =Alcohol and the Skin.=--The skin of those who use much beer or whisky often becomes rough, red, and pimply. Any alcoholic drink is likely to injure the skin because it may hinder good digestion. The drunkard has a red nose and a dark-colored skin. This is because alcohol weakens the walls of the blood tubes and lets them become gorged with blood. If a person takes a drink only once in a while, his face becomes red after each drink, and an hour or two later the effect of the alcohol passes off. The blood tubes have squeezed up to their natural size. =Alcohol and the Kidneys.=--Taking several glasses daily of even such weak alcoholic drink as beer often causes the kidneys to become sick. Some of their working parts become changed to fat and some parts become hard. The cells which let the waste matter pass out of the blood get hurt by the poison of the alcohol so that they let some of the food also pass out of the blood. PRACTICAL QUESTIONS 1. Name the two parts of the skin. 2. Give the three uses of the skin. 3. What is a sweat gland? 4. How much sweat is formed daily? 5. Of what use is the sweat? 6. How should the nails be cared for? 7. Tell what care should be given the hair. 8. Why should you not use another person's hair brush? 9. Why should the skin be washed often? 10. Of what use is a cold bath? 11. Why should the hands be well washed before handling food? 12. Why does the drunkard have a red nose? CHAPTER XIII CLOTHING AND HOW TO USE IT =Kinds of Clothing.=--People are beginning to learn that the wearing of the right kind of clothing has much to do with keeping them well. Many persons wear too heavy clothing in winter. Keeping the body too hot makes it weak. Some kinds of clothing are much warmer than others. Some are expensive and others are cheap. Cheap clothes will often serve the same purpose as the more costly ones. If you look at your handkerchief or stockings, you will see that they are made of threads running crosswise to each other. All clothing is made from threads. Some of these are wool, some are linen, a few are silk, and many are cotton. =Woolen Clothing.=--Woolen clothing, such as overcoats and fine cloth dresses and suits, is made from the wool cut from sheep. Enough wool can be sheared from two sheep in one year to make an entire suit of clothes. The raw wool is first twisted into threads and then woven by machines into cloth. [Illustration: FIG. 50.--At the left is a bunch of flax gathered from the field, and on the right is a spool of thread made from the flax and ready to be woven into linen.]