Personal hygiene and physical training for womenGalbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Science
Personal hygiene and physical training for women
Galbraith, Anna M. (Anna Mary)
Physical education and training; Women -- Health and hygiene
There is a natural tendency for the dirt to accumulate on the under
surface of the nail, between it and the finger. This is not only
unsightly, but it is often the cause of actual danger, as this forms
a lodgment for the germs of disease. Not only is it necessary for
doctors and nurses to give the most scrupulous attention to the care
of the nails, but, when we learn that one cook has been the cause
of spreading typhoid fever through a number of families, in her
itinerary in going from place to place, we must be impressed with
the necessity of more careful oversight being given to the hands of
domestics and housewives who prepare the food.
For the same reason, it is self-evident that the hands should always
be washed immediately before going to the table, and cleaning the
nails is always a finishing touch in the washing of the hands.
For the purpose of cleansing the nails, an orange stick or nail-file
should be used, and never the point of the scissors or the blade of a
knife, for either of these causes a roughening of the under surface
of the nails, whereby the lodgment of dirt becomes only the more
securely fixed. After the use of the nail-file, the nail-brush should
be used, followed again by the use of the file or stick. If there
is a tendency to a roughening of the skin under the nail, it can be
obviated by the use of cold cream at night. Just before retiring, the
fingers should be dipped into cold cream, and let the tips take up
just as much as they will retain, and after this dipped into talcum
powder.
The small rim of epidermis which laps over the nail should be
gently shoved back with the orange stick every day. This skin, when
torn, forms the so-called hangnails, by which infection easily
enters the system; it may give rise to felons or even to general
blood-poisoning.
=The Care of the Feet.=—In the care of the feet it must be remembered
that the leather of the closely fitting boot allows very little
ventilation, and so more attention must be paid to the airing of the
feet as well as to their bathing. The feet should be bathed twice
daily.
On making the toilet for the evening dinner both shoes and stockings
should be changed, the stockings hung up in the room, and the shoes
left out to air and dry, instead of being stuffed into the shoe-bag,
to remain there until the next morning.
An alcohol rub will be found very refreshing to weary feet. For
profuse perspiration of the feet, boric acid or talcum powder may be
used, dusting the powder over the feet both night and morning.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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