The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-04
WHY INDIANS CAN ENDURE EX-
 POSURE.

A chill of the whole body reduces vitality and renders patients more li- able to disease, but local chill is particularly injurious. There is an old adage:
 If wind blow at you through a lole
 Make your will and sain your soul. Wind which comes fairly in ones face is little to be dreaded but if wind catches one at the back of the neck, behind the ear or even at the side of the head, it is much more dangerous Largely open windows are compara- lively safe, but chink through whiciI their air blows with force is to be carefully avoided. One reason of this probably is that wind blowing through a chink causes a more rapid current of air, and thus chills the part of the body against which it impinges much more quickly than air moving slowly and still more than air which is not moving at all.
 Every one knows how in the Alphine health resorts the temperature may be many degrees below zero, and yet cold is not felt so long as the air is still, but whenever the wind begins to blow the cold becomes almost unbear- able There is one kind of draught that many people seem to forget, and that is the draught between the door and the fireplace. If ones hand is pleaced at the lower edge of a door when a brisk fire is burning in the grate a considerable draught will be felt.
 This cold air spreads itself out over the floor of the room as 1t is passes along, but again collects into nar- rower stretm close to the fireplace, so that the feet of one sitting by the flreside are apt to be swept constant ly by the cold air, and thus the body is chilled, To avoid this the chair in which an aged person sits should be placed so far away from the fireplace as to avoid this draught or else the feet should be kept raised by a some what high stool, so as to be above the level of ~the draught.
 But while we take all due precautlon to prevent injury from without, we must not forget that one of the most important methods of securing health is to increase the patients power of resistance. Some years ago a Cover nor General of Canada asked an In- dian, whose clothing was of the scan- tiest, although the weather was ex- tremely cold, how it was that he was able to go about with so little cloth ing without apparently feeling chilled The Indian said
 You do not cover your face. Do you feel cold in the face?"
 "No,' said the Governor General
 Well, then,' said the Indian, Tn dian all face"
 The scientific explanation of this power of resisting cold was given many years ago by Prof. Rosenthal who showed that the peripheral yes sells, when subjected to night tenn perature for a length of time, lose their power of construction when ex- posed to cold. In consequence of this the blood continues to pour through thee lilled skin, and thus the tempera- ture of the whole body is reduced By training the vessels to alternate heat and cold as we do in our faces, and as the Indian did in his whole body they react more quickly to changes of temperature, and thus become more efficient regulators of the animal | heat.
 This may be don to a certain extent by daily baths, care being taken, how ever that the application of cold Is not sufficiently great or sufficiently prolonged to depress the patient, and l think one of the best ways Is to ap- ply hot water as hot as it can well be borne and then a little cold after ward, just enough to get the reaction But 1t is not only the vessels of the 1 skin which require exercise and train- 1 ing. Theresistant power of the patient repends very greatly upon the power i of his general circulation and the per lection of his respiratory movements 1 London Lancet.