The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1878-07-19
sr, LOUIS, NOT RrcHMoxp.-The Balti-

ST. LOUIS, NOT RICHMoND.-Ihe batIl-
more .Anerican OF yesterday has some sem.
siBle remarks on the subject OF the recent
"heai ed term in st. Louis. Because people
are stricken down in st. Louis when the
thermometer indicates 1909 is no reason
why they should be in Richmond. The
American says: .
ANYBODY who has ever spent any time in
that city in the summer must have VIVID
memories Of the extraordinary heat. Ihe
sluggish Mississippi, crawling slowly past,
seems to reflect the rays OF the sum-, ana
il appears as If cooling breath or air
rarely passes over its surface. Then,
too, the white limestone used large
IL in paving the streets and Tor
building purposes, and which, unde1
travel, is ground down into compact
white powder, is reflector and radiator OF
extreme mower. It stores the heat and re-
turns it with increased power. Yet proba-
bly the thermometer did not stand in St.
Louis much higher than it has done several
days OF late in Baltimore, and it Is interest
ing to study why the heat has produced
such fearful results there, and here has been
comparatively harmless. The temperature
there has presumably not been higher
than 1000. and we have had it at that
more than once recently. AllftLe facts
in such calamity as has befal!en the
western city are worthy objects OF popular
study and general information. that we may
avoid the causation, and have some notion
OF what is best to be done for the patient
before the arrival of the physician. Last
week and this week we bad day after day OF
weather hot enough for .sunstroke, but some
other factor in the causatlon was wanting.
The other factor usually assigned IS. the
saturation of the air 1eith moisture. We
have had high relative humidity during
our hot spell, but the constant breczes have
produced an evaporating effect and kept the
animal heat down to its proper state OF 9So.
That degree once exceeded, so that the blood
in the body is simmcring at points above
1000, the work of decomposition goes
on with perilous rapidity. The rule is
that when the temperature of the body has
reached 1919 death will ensue. There
are exceptions noted in the medical annals,
and one of them is a case treated at Belle
yue Hospital in 1864, when the heat OF the
body was 1862, and the patient re-
covered.
rBut it is next to impossible for the tem-
perature of the body to reach that degree.
In any study, however, OF the awfu! NOR
taIity at st. Louis, it remains to be taken
into account that many deaths occurred as
eariy as s O'Clock in the morning, when
the thermometer registered but wv.
Moreover, many persons were prostrated III
the shade, and while they were observing
precautions for their safety. Usually deaths
from heat happen in the afternoon, partly
because that is the hottest part OF the day,
and partly because the subject OF attack
has often been laboring Tor several
hours. But in St. Louis the deaths
began early in the morning. and that, 100,
on morning following Sunday. when a
large proportion Of the people had Kept IN
doors and cultivated repose, and when the
only fatigue possible on Monday morning
was that OF a long sublection to exhaustlng
heat. When they got UP in the morning.
they were utterly enfeebed by the vapor-
bath OF their bedrooms, and in confirmation
it is remarked that during Sunday num-
Der of persons succ,mbed to syncope or
ordinary fainting. There was no relief
until breeze sprung up on Tuesday eve
ming 10 dry the moisture of the atmosphere,
and in the mean time over two hundred
men, women, and children had been stricken
down. The roster OF deaths may foot up
one hundred. and doubtless considerable
number OF the sufferers who survive have
been permanently weakened, and Will never
fully recover from the effects OF the blow.