Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1874-08-05
Domestic.
"TAKrse Co1D."-Ofsll the erroneous

"TAKrsa CoIp."L ."LOfsll 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, 1 may
also say to some extent, professional
view, taking cold is the greatest disease
and death producer in the world. Fully
eighty per cent, of those who consult
physicians premise by saying, they
have taken cold. If q relapse occurs
during convalescence, 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 donot feel as well this morning,
1 think I have taken cold, but don't
see how" are expressions which the
physician hears dozen times day.
The latter 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 seldom be
interrupted. 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 always take
their cue about disease and its causes
from the trusted family doctor and he
accounts very often indeed for an ag-
gravation Of the symptoms of those
under charge (the cause of which ag-
gravation by the way, may be, and often
is, very difficult to detecD by the easy
and satisfying explanation Of having
taken cold. In this way he gets over
the trouble of attempting to make plain
to untutored minds what is Of puzzling
problem to the most trained intellect,
and at the same time shifts the respon-
sibility for the relapse on the uncom-
planning 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 1T
were not for them their health would
be next to perfect from the beginning
to the end of the year. Thousands OF
consumptives, specially 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, vigor, purity and good
constitution on its side-no degree OF
ordinary exposure to cold gives rise to
any unpleasant effects. ALI the ordinary
against colds, coughs and
rheumatic pains may be disregarded
and no i'll effects ensue. But let the
blood become impure /; let the body be-
come deranged from any acquired dis
order; or let the vigor begin to wane,
and the infimities of age be felt by oc-
arrangements in some vital
part, either from inherited or acquired
abuses, and the action of cold Will ex-
cite more or less disorder of some kind,
and the form of this disorder, or the
disease which will ensue, will be
by the kind of pre-existing
blood impurity or the pre-existing fault
of the organic processes. If the pre-
existing fault be in deficient excretion
of lactic and 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
or if there be conjoined with
fault animpure condition of
the blood from the long continued re-
breathing of breathed air. consumption
will not unlikely 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 a person,
and another disease at another time;
while at other times and seas ons, great
and prolonged e1posureto cold is harm
1aco