Year: 1874

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.