The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1874-12-19 00:00:00

THE EFFECTS OF COLD ON THE
HUMAN BODY.

The Times, in the following leader, gives some very valu-
able advice respecting the care necessary to be taken by old
and young during the inclemency of the winter mouths—

We called attention on Thursday to the great mor-
tality of the exceptionally cold week which ended upon
the sth of December, and which brought with it ex-
perience only too confirmatory of that afforded by
fernier inclement seasons. It was well-known to our
ancestors that severity of weather checked many of
the pestilences by which they were visited, and which
doubtless were produced or promoted by a temperature
favourable to the decomposition of refuse. In the
strong and healthy, more°.el, she shock of cold hi
speedily followed by a reaction which ceffs into play
all the reserved vitality of the system, and which
hence produces a sense of exhilaration and of power,
requiring, in its turn, to be maintained by an excep-
tionally large consumption of the food which serves
as fuel for the production of animal heat. From
these causes, from the cessation of epidemics and from
the increased buoyancy and appetite of the healthy
and the strong, it came to be inferred that cold was in
some way wholesome and health-giving, and early in
the present century it was a widely.spread super-
stition that young children might be hardened and
strengthened by being compelled, with very insufficient
aid from nlothing, to tight for their lives against the
severity of winter. Since an exact registration of the
national mortality has been enforced by law, and
mince the results yielded by this registration have been
collated and studied, it has been known to all who are
conversant with vital etatiatica that cold is the most
dangerous of the enemies which threaten life, and that
a considerable fall of temperature produces a mortality
which is seldom exceeded during the prevalence of the
most malignant epidemic. In this metropolis a sudden
visitation of cold is at least as fatal as a visitation of
cholera, _

As far as London is concerned, the Weekly Return
of the Registrar-General allows us to analyze the mor-
tality produced by cold with some precision, and to
state not only the various forms of disease to which it
is attributed, but also the periods if life on which it
falls. As in the experience of former generations,
cold lessens the number of deaths from zymutic
diseases. We are now passing through an epidemic of
Scarlet Fever: but, even with the reinforcement thus
occasioned, the mortality from this class of diseases
was 69 below the average of the corresponding week
for the previous ten years. In diseases of the
1-leart, however, the mortality was *2 in excess of
the average; in Consumption, it was 37 in excess
in Pneumonia, or inflammation of the substance of
the lungs, it was 78 in excess; and in Bronchitis
the excess amounted to no less than 221. The
analysis of the figures with regard to age shows that
the deadly effect has been produced, almost ex-
clusively, upon the two extremes of life, Heart
Disease hardly occurs in early childhood; but more
than two-thirds of the mortality attributed to it was
in persons between forty and eighty. The great majo-
rity of them would probably be nearly 60, but the
return deals with age in periods of twenty years—
from forty to sixty, and from sixty to eighty. Con-
gumption, again, does not attack children, and is fatal,
if at all, before old age is reached; so that its victims
are taken from the naddle period, and the excess
merely represents the deaths of those who, under more
favourable conditions, might have lingered on. But,
of the 188 deaths set down to Pneumonia, 111 occurred
in children under five years of age; and 191 of the
472 who succumbed to Bronchitis are placed in the
same column. Twenty-three deaths from Pneunomia
and 1.15 from Bronchitis occurred in persons between
the ages of sixty and eighty, and twenty-sevea from
Pneumonia and seventy-nine from Bronchitis between
the ages of forty and sixty. Between five years old
and forty the mortality from both diseases was com-
paratively trifling.
It would be an error to suppose that these deaths in
excess of the average occurred only, or even chiefly,
among those who were unable to procure the ordinary
comforts of life. It must, of course, be admitted that
the very poor suffer in a higher degree from physical
privations than their richer neighbours ; and in no
way is the difference morn plainly manifested than in
the deaths ef numerous children who might have
grown up if they had been better nurtured. The
mortality from cold in the East of London has been
greater than in the West; but the mortality in the
West has been at the rate of 81 per 1,000, and our own
obituaries have shown that the children and the aged
among the wealthier classes have borne their share of
the common danger. The fact is that the perils
incident to cold, although abundantly recognizecl•in
theory. are hardly enorush c,•nsidere,l in practice.
Young children are often most imperfectly clad and their
chests and larger joints—knees, shoulders, and elbows
are often left with little or no protection. Mothers and
nurses think that bare necks, and arms, and legs are
pleasing to look upon ; and they pay little hood to the
effect on these uncovered surfaces of sudden changes
from tills, atmosphere of the drawing-room or the
nursery to that of the staircase. Bedroom fires, again,
are not used so freely as they should he; and a morn-
ing application of cold water is far too common' and
is often made conscientiously, in the belief that it is
tonic and bracing. The diet of children in Winter is
another matter which calls for special consideration;
for the furnace of the body, like that of a stove,
must be provided with sufficient and appropriate fuel
in order to maintain an elevated temperature. When
Winter is coming, parents should realize that all their
children, and especially the delicate ones, are about to
pass through a time of more or less trial and danger'
and they should consider beforehand how the trial
may be met, and how the danger may be set aside. It
too often happens that mischief is done beyond recall
before prevention is thought of. Even where there is
strength to pass through the ordeal, the unnecessary
exposure of children to cold is a source of physical suf-
fering, and takes a high place among the cruelties
which come from want of thought. Before the circula-
tion of a child is sufficiently depressed for the pro-
duction of Pneumonia or of Bronchitis, or even of
chilblains, much pain must have been endured; and
this pain can only be regarded as an evil which re-
quires a wasteof vital force in order that the system
may strive against and overcome it. There is much
room for practical reform in our habitual arrangements
for the Winter life of the young, not only where hard-
ship is the natural heritage of poverty, but also in
families who have comforts and even luxuries at their
command. • .

In the case of the aged, of course, the problem is
often complicated by the pre-existence of disease, and
always by the diminished powers of the declining
period of life. But surely, as the peril increases, BO
also should the precaution? It is no unworthy result
of our civilization that our first cold week found so
many old people to kill; but yet when a man or woman
is hale and healthy at 70, death before 80 cannot be
called other than premature. We strive to preserve
and to prolong life throughout its earlier periods; and
its later ones, when it should be crowned by the
wisdom of experience and should be enjoying the fruits
of labour, are at least as well worthy of our care.
The aged should never forget that cold is the enemy
whom they have most to fear. They cannot con-
sume, or, if they consume, they cannot assimilate
and utilize, the excess of food which is required in
order to compensate for a fall in external tempera-
rature ; and they cannot maintain the activity of
their circulation by vigorous exercise. They have
no safety but in protecting themselves against the
withdrawal of heat from their bodies by the sur-
rounding atmosphere; and to this end the only
effectual agencies are warm rooms and warm cloth-
ing But, in whatever way we are clothed,
we still have one unguarded inlet. As soon as we
leave artificial temperatures we must breathe the
cold air, and the consequence of this necessity dis-
plays itself in the large amount of disease of the res-
piratory organs which cold brings in its train. Here
Nature steps in, and invites us to learn the lessons
which she is always ready to teach. If we breathe
only through the nostrils, the air is warmed by passing
through a narrow and winding inlet, but if we breathe
through the mouth the chill indraught goes at once
into the lungs. The difference is one which all would
do well to bear in mind; and when the thermometer is
below 40 degrees old people should not only shut their
mouths out of doors with scrupulous care, but should
regard a gossip at a street corner as an indulgence which
may, perhaps, be purchased at the cost of life itself.

A correspondent of The Tirsesmakes the following common-
sense observations on the foregoing :
Sir,—ln your leading article you justly remark that
the sudden changes of temperature causing the un-
usually high mortality cannot he foreseen or guarded
against, and in a great measure this is true. But I
think there are some precautions that might be taken
with certain advantage to health, even if they did not
avert death.
Other nations remark, and jmtly, that no people
suffer so much from cold as the English, especially in
their houses. A visit to Russia has shown me how far
better precautions against cold are taken there, not only
to exclude the draughts from rooms— partly, I believe,
the cause of many colds among ourselves—but more
especially out of doors. It has struck me forcibly on
my return to see the careless way in which persons
brave the cold and damp by wearing insufficient cloth-
ing, more particularly women. Can there be any doubt
that the neuralgia and rheumatism now Bo prevalent
are caused in great measure by the present fashion of
head-dresses, worn without even strings to protect the
face? In Russia, for the last three months, no woman
ventures out without tying a little shawl or handker-
chief over her hat or bonnet, and let me tell my young
friends that the fashion is a most becoming, as well as
comfortable, one. And yet the weather was -not
colder there than here, but the changes are quite as
sudden. Another moot wise precaution, universally
adopted by both men and women, is to wear a large
cloak or outer wrap, which, on entering a house or
building, is left in the hail; it surprises me to see per
sons sitting in a hot church and leaving it without
any change of garments.
Surely, if our medical attendants adopted the
Chinese custom of keeping persons in health, instead
of merely curing them in sickness, such simple, yet
wise precautions, as these would not be wholly
omitted, as at present, from their advice.—Your
obedient servant, T.

It has been determined by the Nottingham School
Board to build a second school at a coat of £lO,OOO. This has
not been effected without three years' opposition.
Two fatal shipwrecks are reported from abroad.
The steamship Jelfina, from Natal for Onayacan, has been
lost off the South American coast, with nineteen lives rand
the steamer ble,ngol has been wrecked near Hong Kong, with
the lose of the captain and fifteen of the crew.