The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-06-16
"Taking COId.0

vi all the erroneous notions pertaining to
the preservation of health, says the Sanituri-
an, no one is fraught with more miscbiefthan
that about taking cold. According to the
popular, and, may also say TO some extent
professional view, taking cold is the greatest
disease and death producer in the world.
Full eighty per cent. OF those who consult
physicians premise by saying they have taken
cold. If a relapse occurs during Gonzales
cence, ten to one the blame is laid on the ac-
tion 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 1
don't see how" are expressions which the
physician hears dozen times day. The
latter is thereby often led 10 the reflection
that if it we're not for death-dealing colds he
would have little to do, and convalescence
would seldom be interrupted. But If the
physician take the trouble to think little
more upon the 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 diseases
and its causes from the trusted family doctor,
and he accounts very often indeed tor an ag-
gravation 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
10 untutored minds what is often puzzling
problem to the most trained intellect, and at
the same time shift the responsibility for
the relapse on the accomplishing and much
abused weather. So it is that men and wo-
men have been led to regard climatic changes
as the greatest enemy to their health; if it
we're not for them their health would be next
to perfect from the beginning to the end OF
the wear. Thousands of consumptives, es-
pecially in the first and second stages OF the
disease, are firmly of the opinion that if they
could only escape the malgn 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, Wig
or, purity and good constitution on its side
no degree of ordinary exposure to cold gives
rise to any unpleasant effects. All the ordin-
ary precautions against colds, coughs and
rheumatic pains may be disregarded and no
| i'll effects ensue. But let the blood become mo
pure; let the body become deranged frim-
auy inherited or acquired disorder, or let the
| vigor begin TO wane, and the infrmities of
age be felt by occasional arrangements in
some vital part, either from inherited or ac-
quired 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 determined by the kind OF
pre-existing blood impurity or the pre-exist-
| ing fault of the organic processes. Ii the pre-
! existing fault be in a deficient excretion of
Tactic and uric acids by the kidneys and skin,
the disease developed by the cold win be
rheumatic: ifthe lungs be st fault, either by
| acquired or inherited abuses, Inflammation
| will be likely to ensue; or if there be con-
joined with the pulmonary fault an impure
condition of the blood from the long-contin-
ued rebreathing of breathed air, consump-
| tion will not unlikely show itself. In no
! other way can the influence of cold in the de-
| velopment 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 at other times and seasons great
and prolonged exposure to cold is harmless.