American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-02-06
Catching Cold.
A writer in London paper says in re
gard to catching cold.

A writer in London paper says in re
gard to catching cold:
The teaching of quarter of a century
has taught the middle classes some ele-
| mentary truths about hygiene, and they
have as rule vague idea that bad
drainage produces typhoid, that wet feet
are not good for consumptive people,
that cleanliness in the home is desirable,
that whitewashing is good disintectant,
and that the skin is the healthier for
plenty of water but they know very lit
| tie more. We should not say they knew
that much were it not that an alarm of
| cholera, or an outbreak of typhoid, or a
burst of scarlet fever seems to bring out
| in their minds sort of latent knowledge
which they always possessed but con
trived not to remember until the pres
sure became too severe to be resisted.
They do know a little, moreover, about
bad smells, and something of the effect
of drinking, and little about heat apo
plexy, but of precaution against cold
they not only know nothing, but are eX-
tremely disinclined to learn. They dis
like catching" colds, of course, and
grow depressed and stupid and ill-tem-
pered when they have caught them; but
they look upon colds as misfortunes
which must come, and which do not sig
| nifty, and If urged to take precautions re-
gard the adviser, even if IA professional
man, as slightly effeminate, or, as they Y
press it, very much given "to coddling
himself. p" 1t does not strike them that cold
wave kills as many people as a thirst of
| cholera. Because strong children sur
vive daily bath in cold water they
think cold water "hardens" children in
| winter as well as summer; and because
air and exercise are excellent things,
| they assume that fog is air. and a long
| walk in a drizzle bcneficials If they are
| getting on in years they may admit that
they like warmth and good fires, but they
| are wholly unaware that healthy warmth
means not only a warm temperature
sixty-four degrees Fahrenhet-but a
temperature steadily maintained at that
height either by fires or clothes. The
very use of a thermometer to regulate
the temperature of a room seems to be
unknown in most houses, and you will
see sedentary men sitting in room for
hours with fire which brings the
t. mperat1re up to seventy degrees, and
then for hours more with the fire nearly
out and the temperature at fifty-two de-
grees or lower. They know, we suppose,
that sudden fall of eighteen degrees
will kill off men of low vitality in hun
dreds, will give perhaps third of man.
kind a " touch of the liver" and will in
fiict on half the remainder an influenza
nearly as annoying and almost as danger
GUS as fever, but once indoors they
fail to realize their knowledge. Even
when the circulation is weak and
the old are aware that cold is Their
enemy, they will go from a heated
library to chilly diningroom
quite unaware that they might as well
go into a cold bath, and, having done it
will scold their daughters for throwing
off their wraps while heated from bal
mo doubt {. dangerous practice, but not
bit more SO than the sudden changes in
which the scolders habitually indulge
This contempt for the thermometer, the
only trustworthy guide in fire making, is
positively perverse, and so is much OF
the popular notion about hardening.
The basis of that notion, as entertained
by the middle class-the working pool
are wiser, because they are educated by
the acute pain of rheumatism-is tina
the worse the weather, or at all event.
the colder the weather, the more i
hardens yOu-an assertion which, wher
true at all, is only true of persons will
exuberant vitality and unusually higl
circulation. For the average man o.
woman in this country exposure to tn,
weather during eight months of the yea
may have bracing or otherwise benefi
cial effect-indeed, it must have on al
but a limited class-but during the re
naming four months the loss is as grea
as the gain, and for the old, for children
and for persons of low vitality is proba
bly, greater. Agricultural laborers ar,
far from being healthy or long-livet
class of the community, nor do police
) men, who are out in all weathers ant
well fed, enjoy any marked immunit,
from disease