The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-08-13
Taking Cold.

OF all the erroneous notions pertaining to
the preservation of health, no one is fraught
with more mischief than that about taking
cold. According to the popular, and may
also say to su,ue extent professional view,
taking cold is the greatest disease and death
producer in the world. Fully eighty pcr cent.
Of those who consult physicians premise by
saying, they have taken cold. Ii relaps oc-
ours during convalescencc, ten to one the blame
is laid on the action of cold. My pain is
greater, must have taken cold my cough is
worse must have taken cold, l do not feel
as we'll this morning, think have taken cold
but don't see how" are expressions which the
physician hears dozen times day. The lat
ter is thereby often led to the reflection that
if it were not for death dealing colds he would
have little to do and convalescence would sell
dom be interru pted But if the physician
takes the trouble to think little more upon
this subject, he will be convinced that to his
own craft is due this stereotyped and never
ending complaint of his patients about taking
cold. The sick and their friends nearly al
ways take their cue about disease and its
causes from the trlsted family doctor; and he
accounts very often indeed for an aggravation
of the symptoms of those under his charge (the
cause of which aggravation by the way, may
be, and often is,very difficult to detect) by the
easy and satisfying explanation of having
taken cold In this way he gets over the
trouble of attempting to make plain to un-
tutored minds what is often q puzzling prob
lem to the most trained Intellect, and at the
same time shifts the responsibility for the
relapse on the uncompaining and much
abused weather So it is that men and women
have been led to regard climatic changes as
the greatest enemy to their health (; if it were
not for them, their health would be next to
perfect from the beginning to the end OF the
year. Thousands of consumptives. especially
in the first and second stages OF the disease,
are firmly of the opinion that if they only
could escape the maligu influence OF one cold
after another, their recovery would be assured
TO this end precautions of the most thorough
character are scrupulously observed, and yet
cold after cold is taken the patient, mother or
nurse knows not how.
When the human body is at its prime-with
youth, vigor, purity, and good constitution
no degree of ordinary exposure to cold gives
rise to any unpleasant effects. All the ordi..
nary precautions against colds, coughs, and
rheumatic pains may be disregardcd and no
i'll effects ensue. But let the blood become
impure let the body become deranged from
any acquired disorder, or let the vigor begin to
wane, and the infirmities ofage be felt by oc-
casional arrangements in some vital part,
either from inherited or acquired abuses, and
the action of cold will excite more or less dis
order of some kind, and the form of this dis
order, or the disease which will ensue, will be
determined by the kind of prce-exlstiing blood
impurity or the prc-existing fault of the or
organic processes. If the pre-existing fault
be in deficient excretion of Tactic aud
uric acids by the kidneys and skin the disease
developed by the cold will be rheumatic; if
the lungs be at fault, either by acquired
or inherited abuses, Inflammation will be
likely to ensue; or if there be conjoinied
with the pulmonary fault an impure condition
of the blood from the long continued re- breath
ing of breathed air, consumption will not un-
likely show itself In no other way can the
influence of cold in the development of diverse
diseases be accounted for; developing this disease
in one, and that disease in another; this disease
at one time in person, and another disease at
another time while ut other times and sea-
SOUS great and prolonged exposure to cold is
harmless. r. Black, II. d., Sanitdrian for
Juhc