The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1861-03-23
Nirlmono pispatth.
sAr1IRnAY MoRNINa. MARCH ., lse,


another. the boys home for the holidays; an.
other a new year anxious as the last pu' az
men dread the cold. know they 90, ior ,.o a,a
a surgeon, and see much of its ELECTS among
my poorer patients and for that reason
have to consider how we ongh. 70 ue.' 80 80
Treat it you will say-shut the uoor, pom
mn the Ere nut your soul in slippers, ana
vaur htiv in An easy.chair. Treat II ike any
other uubidden guest, aud shut II out. was
thtrk,ng however, OF great class OF our
fellow countrymen VINO 70 aowm ~ "a. so
no gather in the black faced sheep. or wander
ahout the streets OF our cities, and are picked
up stid, senseless bundles OF rags, by the
night police.
10 such IL matters but little that our natu-
raj philosophers deny the existence OF cold
tina; /, is merely the abstraction OF certain
quantity of the heat which is indispensable TO
animal iife-that warmt tn stimu fates to vitaii-
ty--and that IL the temperature is lowered 1t
may at last reach n point when it ceases to
have any effect but, nevertheless, these facts
are interesting
The atmosphere is always robbing us OF our
animal heat which has an average tempera-
ture OF Vs degrees. Ii 1t did not do so, II the
atmos phere were itself IS degrees, we should
feel IL disagreeabiy warm, and prefer one
much iower-say so to IS degrees. How low
the temperature of the body may be allowed
TO sink with impunity, Is doubtful, and seems
TO vary with the individual the robust and
lively man evolving plenty of heat, enjoys a
degree of cold which makes a lean, pink nosed,
blue Tipped woman, truly miserable specG-
Gle. Tooke, in his view of the Russian empire,
says that drivers and horses suffer no tneonVe-
nipnce with the thermometer at ia degrees
below zero and women stand Tor Tour or H'e
hours with their dragged petticoats sun with
ice There have been noticed, however, some
circumstances which would go 10 sac" tnat
national hardihood could not be always relied
upon for instance, in the greatest experiment
oil the effects of cold on nan-the French re-
treat from Russia-the Dutch soldiers OF the
I'd Regiment of the Grenadiers OF the Guard,
consisting of 1877 men, officers and soldiers,
nearly all persisted, as two years after, only
forty-one of them, including their colonelf
General Tendal, who was wounded, had re-
turned to France while of the two other re-
Kiments of Grenadiers, composed OF men near
" all of whom were born In the south Oh
France, a considerable number We're saved
The Germans lost, in proportion, mucn
larser number of men than the French.
Though many Of the latter were reduced al
most to nudity by the Cossacks having stolen
their clothes, they did not die from the enects
Of cold in the same numbers as the Northern
ers whom one would have expected TO brave
out that dreadful campaign with greater I'M
punity There is a singular mystery about the
effects of cold-mysterious as these countries
round which it consolidates its impenetrable
barrier. When your great natural phlloso-
pher calculates with extraordinary nicely the
laws of heat, we cannot follow ms calculations;
how much more difficult, then, must 1T be Tor
us surgeons to determine how nuch, not
whole body but perhaps some patch OF tissue,
may be reduced in temperature with hope OF
its recovery.
Take as an example now, NapoIeon's army
ns IL returns from Russia, and let him quote
from the great surgeon, Baron Larrey, no less
soldier than surgeon:
THE death of the men struck by cold was
preceded by pallor of the face, by sort OF
idiocy by hesitation of speech, weakness OF
sight aud even complete loss OF sensation !;
and in this condition some We're marched for
a shorter or longer period, conducted by their
comrades on their friends. Muscula lar action
was yisibly weakened; they reeled on their
legs as if intoxicated; weakness progressed
gradually till they fell down, winch was a GER
tain sign of the complete tine ton OF vitality.
The continuous and rapid march OF the sol
diars collected into a mass Obliged those who
could not keep up TO leave the centre OF the col
umn and keep to the sides of the road. Once
separa ted from the compact body, and left to
their own resources, they soon lost tneir
equilibrium, and fell into the bitches filled
with snow, from whence it was difficult TO
remove them: they We're struck suddenly
with a painful choking, passed into lethargy,
and in a few seconds ended their existence
When on the heights OF Mienedshi, one OF the
point, of Russia which seemed 10 me most eie-
yated many had bieediug from The nose
The external air hid undoubtedly become
more rarefied, and no longer OF ring resist
auce to the action OF the fiulds, OF which the
movement is constrained by the internal vital
forces and the expansion OF the animal heat,
these fluids passed of by the points OF least re-
sistance, which are generally the mucous sur
faces especially the mucous Inning OF the
nose This death from cold did not seem 10
me n painful one; as the vital forceswere
gradually extinguished, they drew after them
the general sensibility TO external agencies,
and with them disappeared the faculties OF
special sensation. We fonnd almost all the
persons frozen to death lying on their stom-
achs, and with no sign OF decomposition"
How did any escape One would think thai
what was cold to one must have been equally
so to the others. We see in a garden, after
some severe frost, particular species of plants
afec ted by it, but we say the others Were
kar1 hf hArn IE nna n nj M
suffering so uneq ualIy, as regards its indivd
ual members. as to strike the most ordinary
observer with surprise.
Now, it would seem that cold affects it only
two ways-it predisposes to the death of It's
sues, and it kills. In the first case. the par
is not more affected than that it is very cold
its temperature is greatly lowered the con
tracted blood vessels allow but little of tn
vital fluid TO pass. At this moment, it seem
that but a small increase in the teinperatur
may endanger the life OF the part, or even c
the whole body. Let us quote again fror
Baron Iarrey. Towards the end of the win
ter of 1895 go, when l was with the army {
the Eastern Pyranees, we passed snddeni
from an extremely intense cold TO an elevate
temperature. A great number OF the soldier
especially those who were at the siege
Rosas, then had their feet frozen; some az
vansed sentinels were even found dead
their posts in the first hours of the thaw an
although we had passed fifteen or twenty day
under the influence of the severe cold, none
the soldiers of the advanced posts OF the siee
present ted themselves at the ambulances OF u
intrenchment, of which l was diree TORN
chief. until the date ofthe than. So in HOLLAND
the soldiers who for the sake of ie petit cap
raj stood patiently in the snow, did SO VII
impunity till the first thaw, when they WEI
attacked by gangrene. AND what Is TINS iros
bitef 1t is a part in which the power
evolving heat and the circulation OF the blot
has been entirely destroyed and TINS mo
oasily occurs in situations at distance FRO
the seat Of circplation-the toes, fingers, nos
ears. &c The part, if thin, like the ear, IN;
be crisp and hard, ready to break of but ST
these frost bitten parts are not actually irr
coyerabie; they may be thawed, but, stran
as il may SEEM the cold man greatest enen
is the heat he so earnestly prays for. Aft
the battle of Eylau, the thermometer h
fallen to fourteen and fifteen degrees belo
zero, but not a single soldier complained OF al
accident from the effect OF cold, though,
the 9th OF February, they had passed I
nights in snow and were exposed TO the harde
frost" General Fevrier, finding his enemi
unaffected by his usual weapons, changed
tactics In the night Of the 9th, up went
temperature to three, four and five degre
above zero, and the eyer-active French 81
diers felt themselves heavy and their #
numb, troubled with pins ana needles ana
pulling of their shoes and stockings, behc
the toes were black and dried, and red blu
on the instep told them that the increas
temperature had been too much for thu
chilled extremities, and that their feet VT
notwithstanding off them They We
suffering in large what we do in small, VIII
we stick our cold toes to the bars OF the grs
in this cold, wintry weather. We get sol
small patch of skin inf1amed by the he
which, in it's cold condition, it cannot stai
and we call the patch chilblan.
John Hunter froze the ears OF rabbits, tn
thawed them rapidly and they inf1amed
with cold IL he enter too suddenly wa
room, or come too near the fire Of a bivoui
We lately saw a fine looking Scotch girl w
her feet gangrenous from cold she had bs
- ~ lnA tsas faaha fan rrr thas,t %