Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1854-10-20
Price Two Cents.
GBe 9ailp Spy.
FRIDAY. OCTOBER 20, 1854.

| How TO AVOID CoNsUMPTIoN-The letter
| Of N. 2. Willis, published in the Ledger, is a
melancholy picture of the insidious progress
! Of that very fatal disease, consumption. That
| consumption is the most fatal disease of our
climate no one denies. The combined NOR
tality Of cholera and yellow fever has never
equalled that of consumption alone, and
probably never will. Yet the two first cause
the greatest alarm. At the mere whisper of
their approach, individuals personally study
how to avoid them; public bodies expend
large sums in sanitary precautions; and the
newspaper press is filed with suggestions and
advice. All this time consumption is Staying
its tens of thousands annually, without any
serious attempt being made to check its rava-
ges or prevent its approach
That consumption, when once seated, is
incurable, has long been the verdict of the
medical profession. The right way, therefore
is to avoid taking it. Nor is this so difficult
a matter as is generally believed. Even when
consumption has attacked person, but has
not become seated, its cure may be effected
by strict attention to diet and exercise as
was proved in the case of the venerable DIR.
Parish, one of whose lungs was found cica-
tried after his decease, as he had foretold it
would be- How much more easily, therefore
may its access be preventods If we avoid
those things that conduce to it, if we fortify
our body against its approaches, we are almost
sure to secure exemption from it, even
though, perhaps, constitutionally disposed to
the disease.
1t is amongst women that consumption finds
most Of its victims in America, as might be
expected from their almost universal indiffer-
ence to the preservation of health. The neg
lect to dress with sufficient wa, nth, or suita-
bic to the season, is general error of the sex.
If the new winter cloak is not bought, when
cold spell suddenly comes, the fall mantilla
is still worn, because the last years cloak is
out of fashion. Through the same foolish
vanity light bonnet is continued when the
temperature imperatively demands a thick,
warm one. Can it be wondered at, If colds
are caught? Or, when this mad conduct is
persisted in year afer year, that a series of
colds ends in consumption There is one
fatal habit Of the sex, which has often been
commented on, but, alas 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 summer boot of a
gentleman. Y ct of the two sexes the female
is certainly 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 contin-
ually, 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
| prepeRse As if the late hours, the indigesti-
| hle sunpprs the ayoessiva aypitarnant tbo
over crowded and ill-ventilated rooms were
not sufficiently deleterious, they allow fashion
to dictate to them a mode of attire for such
festivals, which is an almost certain provoca-
| tive Of colds, those foster mothers of consump-
ton. A ball-dress, alike in its himsy mate
rial and in the style in which it is cut about
the shoulders, is the very worst costume
| young woman can wear at a dancing party
If she participates in the amusements of the
evening, she is sure to become heated She
| is almost as sure afterwards to rush to win
| dow, or into the hall, in order to cool herself
The consequences are that the pores are sud-
denly closed, and cold and fever superinduced.
Under any circumstances. such conduct would
be perilous. But with ball-dress on, it is
almost certain danger. Four or five seasons
of behavior like this, would sap the health of
giant. Is it strange that it carries off so
many of the young and beautiful
There are still other causes for consumption.
Some of these are such as are little suspected.
Hundreds of women die annually, for exam
pie, for the want of fresh air. American fe-
males live proverbially too sedentary life
Their time is spent in close, hot rooms, and
often they do not take exercise enough; it is
certain that, as a mass they neglect inspiring
exercise in the fresh out-of- door air. Many a
wife and mother, who is fully awake 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 dur
ing 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 precur-
sor of consumption to such a woman, ener-
waited by her indoor life, as her constitution is.
1t is the common cry, that the variableness
of our climate is the cause of so much con-
sumption. But quite half the mortality from
this disease might be avoided, if the laws of
life and health were oftener obeyed, especially
by the female sex, An old proverb says that
an ounce of preventive is worth pound of
cure. In consumption, it is worth two of
cure, for there is really no cure; and there
fore prevention is everything philadelphia
Ledger.