New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-11-14

| In which we have been exposed to very sud.
den and very great changes of temperature
from warm to cold, without other inconveni-
ence than an uncomfortable chill, while we
| can also count many instances in which we
| have taken very severe colds without being
| able to tell how or where we came by them
The slight and almost imperceptible, fire.
| quently unobseryed, causes Of cold have not
perhaps, been as closely traced as they should
| and may be. 1t seems not so much the change
as the kind of change which gives rise to the
unpleasant result. The leaving off of an ac-
| customed garment, even when the lack is not
uncomtortably felt, the exposure of the feet
to wet or chill, few minutes with the head
uncovered in the cool outdoor air, but above
all exposure to draft of air, especially, as
is generally believed, on the back of the head
or neck, are all familiar examples, of which
most of us have had melancholy experience.
OF the last-the draft upon the back of the
head or neck-the danger is proverbial.
Witness the proyerb, Spanish we believe il
Is originally: eff the cold wind reach you
through hole, go make your will and mend
your SOUL" Or the Persian malediction
May cold wind blow in the back of your
neck"
Indeed there seems to be, especially to Pc
culiarly sensitive constitutions, almost a GER
tainty of cold in such currents of air. There
may be no chill, not even uncomfortable cool
ness, and yet the symptoms of a cold manifest
themselves almost as suddenly and fully as
decidedly as sneezing follows the introduction
ofsOme irritating substance, snuff for instance,
into the nOstrils. By Immediately needing
the warning of the first premonitory sneeze,
and at once changing the position of things
so as to avoid the cause, the cold may be and
often is averted. But the danger is that the
cause, being so slight and coupled with so
little present annoyance, is apt to pass I'M
noticed or disregarded until too late.
We have all at some time experienced in
ourselves exceptionally sensitive conditions
under which it seemed impossible for us to
avoid, rs is said, sometimes stalking one cold
on the top of another; :" what gentleman
not long since in the presence of the writer
called summer cold" in which one seems
to take the more cold the warmer he is it is
sort of sweating cold, one of the most dis
agreeable if not the most dangerous class of
these infections. In this condition, the
slightest draft sets one to sneezing, and it
seems impossible to avoid constant Access
sions to the malady. But why? The sud-
den change of temperature theory will GER
tainly not explain those cases where it is
hardly possible to preserve a temperature
sufficiently even to prevent taking cold, and
those cases where cold is taken consciously.
No hypothesis but that of direct irritant
acting upon the mucous surfaces of the lungs
and air passages seems to suffice for the phe-
nOmena of certain class of colds. That
there is such an irritant in the air, in quanti-
ties varying according to the meteorological
conditions, is we'll known, but all its proper
ties and effects are not yet perhaps fully I'M
derstood.- Scientific american.