The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-07-02
"Taking Colds

Or all the erroneous notions pertaining
TO the preservation of health, says the
Sa'itdTldn, no one is fraught with more
mischief than that about taking cold. Ac-
cOrding TO the popular, and, | may also
say. to some extent the professional, view,
taking cold is the greatest disease and
death producer in the world. Fully
I eighty per cent. of those who consult
physicians premise by saying they have
taken cold. If relapse is taken during
cOnvalescence, ten to one the blame is laid
TO the action of cold. " MY pain Is greater.
| must have taken cold; my cough is
worse, must have taken cold; | do not
feel as well this morning. think | have
taken cold, but don't see how" are ex-
pressions which the physician hears doz-
Ell times a day. The latter is thereby
offended to the reflection that if it were
not for death dealing colds he would have
little TO do, and convalescence would sell
dom be interrupted. But if the physician
takes the trouble to think a little more
upon this subject, he will be convinced
that to his own craft is due this stereo-
typed and never-ending complaint of his
patients about taking cold. The sick and
their friends nearly always take their cue
about disease and its causes from the
trusted family doctor, and he accounts very
often indeed for an aggravation of the
symptoms of those under his charge 1.-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 making plain to untu-
tOred minds what is often a pulling
problem to the most trained intellect, and
af tho tinNo shifts fhn ilit ~
for the relapse on the accomplishing and
much-abused weather. SO it is that men
and women have been led to regard eli
matte 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. Thou
sands of cOnsumptives, especially in the
first and second stages of the disease, are
firmly of the opinion that If they could
only escape the malign 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, yigOr, purity and a
good constitution on its side-no degree
of ordinary exposure to cold gives rise to
any unpleasant effects. All the ordinary
precautions against colds, coughs and
rheumatic pains may be disregarded and
no i'll effects ensue. But let the blood be-
come impure: let the body become de-
ranged from any inherited or acquired dis
order, or let the vigor begin to wane. and
the infirmities of age be felt by occasional
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
disorder, or the disease which will ensue
will be determined by the kind of pre-ex-
listing blood impurity or the pre-eXisting
fault of the organic process. If the pre-
existing fault be in the deficient excretiOn
of Tactic and uric acids by the kidneys and
skin, the disease developed by the cold
will be rheumatic; if the lungs be the fault,
either by acquired or inherited abuses, in
fiammatiOn will be likely to ensuc: or, if
there be conjOned with the pulmonary
fault an impure condition of the blood
from the lOng-cOntinued rebreathing of
breathed air, consumption will not unlike
ly show itself. In no other way can the
influence of cold in the development of
diverse Iii eases be accounted for: devel-
Oping this disease in one and that disease
in another; this disease at one time in a
person and another disease at another
time; while at other times and seasons
great and prolonged exposure to cold is
harmless