Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-11-23
Avoid Exposure q Colds.

Consumption is a disease which carries 10
the grave more human beings than any cause
whatever, and yet there is a heedlessness about
exposure to the primary incentives to its in
sidious attacks that cannot fail to excite ones
special wonder. We cut from the columns of
an exchange paper the following judicious re-
Elections on the subject, and commend them
readers:
1t is among women that consumption finds
most of its victims in America, and might be
expected from their almost universal indiffer-
ence to the preservation of health. The ne-
glect to dress with sufficient warmth or suitable
to the season, is q general error Of the sex. If
the new winter cloak is not brought, when
cold spell suddenly comes, the fall mantilla is
still worne because the last years cloak is out
Of fashion. Through the same foolish vanity a
light bonnet is continued when the tempera-
ture imperatiyely demands thick warm one.
Can it be wondered at if colds be caught?
Or, when this mad conduct is persisted in year
after year, that a series of colds end in con-
sumption? There is one fatal habit of the sex,
which has often been commented on, but, alasl
IN vain; we mean the wearing thin Shoes
The thickest gaiter worn by woman, on the
dampest day, is proverbially thinner in the
sole, and lighter in the uppers, than the sum-
ner boot of gentleman. Yet Of the two sexes
the female is not the hardest by nature. Even
when women wear gum overshoes, on slushy or
rainy days, there is nothing to protect the ankle
from the wet skirts. A man who should keep
his feet and ankles damp continually, as ladies'
do theirs in fall, winter, and spring, would very
soon be in his grave.
But this, though perhaps the most fatal, is
not the only careless habit of which rich fe-
males are guilty. The winter balls, with
which every large city and even every rural
district is overrun, offer opportunities for wo-
men to destroy their health, Of which they
would seem to avail themselves with malice
prepense. AS if the late hours, the indigesti.
BILE suppers, the exclusive excitement, and the
overcrowded and ill-ventilated rooms were not
sufficiently deleterious they allow fashion to
dictate to them mode of attire for such festi-
walls, which is almost certain provocative of
colds, these fostermothers Of consumption. "A
ball dress, alike in its himsy material in the
style. in which it is cut about the shoulders, is
the very worst costume woman can wear at
dancing party. If she participates in the
amusements of the evening, she is sure to be-
come heated. She is almost as sure after
wards to rush to window, or into the hall in
order to cool herself The consequences are
that the pores are suddenly closed, and cold
and fever superinduced. Under any circum.
stances such conduct would be perilous. But
with ball dress on it is almost certain dan
ger. -Four or five seasons like this would sap
the health of giant. 1t is not strange that
it carries off so many of the young and beau
tiful?
There are still other causes for consumption.
Some of these are such as are little expected.
Hundreds of women die annually, for example,
for the want of fresh air American females
live proverbially too sedentary life. Their
time is spent in close, hot rooms ; and often
they do not take exercise in the out of door air.
Many wife and mother who is fully awaken
to the folly of fashionable ball dresses, or even
to the neatness of their shoes yet sacrifices her
life by sitting all day within doors, and often
during winter in over-heated rooms, and breath
ing impure air into her lungs. A cold, acct
dentally caught perhaps without any fault of
the victim, is often an almost certain precursor
of consumption to such woman, enervated by
her indoor life as her constitution is.
1t is the common cry that the variableness
Of our climate is the common cause Of so much
consumption. But quite half the mortality
from this disease might be avoided, if the laws
of life and health were oftener obeyed, espe-
cially by the female sex. An old proverb says
that an ounce Of preventative is worth two Of
cure. In consumption, it is worth two ofcure,
for there is really no cure, and therefore pre-
tentative is everything.