Cold (disease)

“ It is owing to an imperfect knowledge of this law which causes so general a belief in the theory that the internal organism takes on disease readily from the action of cold upon the surface of the body. But, in fact, the skin was especially designed to be played upon by extremes of heat and cold, wind and wet; and human beings are not necessarily such pitiable creatures as they are made to appear from the general supposition that a transient exposure to a current of pure air, whether wet, dry, cold or hot, is likely to bring on disease. ”

“ What is more common, with a patient who is the subject of some chronic organic disease, than to be suddenly cut off by the occurrence of acute inflammation in the affected organ after exposure to cold? Every medical practitioner can answer. In remarking upon the influence of cold as a cause of mortality. ”

“ Even slight feelings of chilliness, if long protracted, are apt to terminate in some form of disease.
Cold is more likely to prove injurious when it is applied by a wind or currant of air, and the injurious operation of cold is augmented when it is accompanied with moisture—wetness is the worst way in which cold can be applied. 201The contact of wet or damp clothes with the skin, both increase and prolong the sensation of cold. A foggy atmosphere is more prejudicial than a clear one of the same temperature. While we are asleep, also, our power of resisting the effects of cold is diminished. ”

“ Neither shall we spend time in enumerating all the various symptoms of colds, as they are pretty generally known. It may not however be amiss to observe, that almost every cold is a kind of fever, which only differs in degree from some of those that have already been treated of.
No age, sex, or constitution, is exempted from this disease; neither is it in the power of any medicine or regimen to prevent it. The inhabitants of every climate are liable to catch cold, nor can even the greatest circumspection defend them at all times from its attacks. ”

“ On the other hand, it must not be forgotten, that too warm clothing is a source of disease,—sometimes even of the same diseases which originate in exposure to cold,—and often renders the frame more susceptible of the impressions of cold, especially of cold air taken into the lungs. ”

“ A Cold constantly produces some Disorder or Defect in the Functions of some Part or Parts of the Body, and thus becomes the Cause of a Disease. It is indeed a real Disorder itself, and which, when in a violent Degree, makes a very perceivable Assault upon our whole Machine. Colds, with their Defluxions, considerably weaken the Breast, and sooner or later considerably impair the Health. Persons subject to frequent Colds are never robust or strong; they often sink into languid Disorders; and a frequent Aptitude to take Cold is a Proof, that their Perspiration may be easily checked and restrained ”

“ Often enough, we observe persons sitting heavily clad, in a warm room and close to the fire, and yet feeling “shivery” and sure of having “caught cold.” To throw off all clothing would banish such chills instanter, especially if the person begins to give himself a brisk hand-rubbing. The skin is sweltered, and is numb for want of circulation in the capillaries. In the case supposed the person has prevented a “cold.” Next to the water-bath, which is, of course, or ought to be, an air-bath and water-bath combined, the simple air-bath is invaluable as a prophylactic or a curative ”

“ Cold appears to be the cause of the disease, and heat seems to remove it; therefore, when these periods of distress occur, let the patient sit over a strong decoction of bitter herbs, such as tansy, hoarhound, wormwood, catnip and hops, while a blanket is thrown round the waist of the patient to confine the steam to the lower parts. ”

“ Then I have to explain that colds are not taken suddenly and from without but that they come from within, that their period of Incubation may have extended over months or years, that a clean, healthy body possessed of good vitality cannot take cold under the ordinary thermal conditions congenial to human life, no matter how sudden the change in temperature. ”

“ Slight colds, in some constitutions, are matters of little moment; but in others they are frequently attended by the most serious consequences, and always increase a natural predisposition to diseases of the throat and chest. The habit of thinking and speaking lightly of colds, among the former, causes the latter too often to regard them as of little account; but in this they commit a dangerous and too often fatal error. Almost every case of confirmed and hopeless disease of the lungs may be traced back to a slight cold. ”

“ Taking cold may be caused by chilling of the surface of the body or part of the body. In the chilled portions of the skin the pores close, the blood recedes into the interior, and as a result of this the elimination of poisonous gases and exudates through these portions of the skin is suppressed. ”

“ Heat and Cold as Causes of Disease.—These are two of the most prolific sources of disturbance of perfect health, and they enter very largely into health considerations, chills especially being responsible for a large proportion of our ailments. Unguarded exposure to intense heat, especially from the direct rays of the sun, is liable to produce sunstroke, which often proves rapidly fatal. ”

“ It is a very significant comment on the cold-air fallacy, that people of all ages, sexes, occupations and social positions, and in all conditions of general health, catch cold, say to-day, from the slightest exposures, often, indeed, they are totally at a loss to account for them except upon one surmise or another, like that of the old lady who “caught her death o’ cold taking gruel out of a damp basin” ”

“ For quenching the thirst the best temperature is from 50° Fahr. to 68° Fahr. Americans prefer about 40°.
3. The gulping down of ice-water or hot coffee, etc., means eventually a stomach damnation.
4. The use of very hot and cold substances, following or alternating, is injurious to the teeth.
5. Ingestion of cold food and drinks lessens the bodily temperature, whether it be normal or febrile.
6. Cold food and drinks increase the tendency to cough, by causing, reflexly, a congestion of the bronchial vessels. Hence persons with bronchial disease ought not to indulge in cold drinks. ”

“ Exposure to great heat or cold, or any sudden transition from one extreme of temperature to another, are supposed by some authors to be the causes of this disease; while others, and we think with justice, attribute it to unwholesome or putrid food, and to general inattention and neglect. ”

“ However, I am sure that most persons who will accustom themselves to an out-door life and to light clothing, have only to reform their eating-habits to make themselves virtually disease proof; while all classes may derive great benefit from a rational application of the principle.
That certain symptoms, popularly called cold, are often excited by exposure to fresh air, damp air, draughts, and the like, is true enough ”

“ Colds are commonly due to sudden changes of temperature, and are caused by the sudden closing of the pores of the skin, thus preventing the escape of those waste matters of the body which Nature has designed should be expelled in that direction. The blood is thus driven inward, causing congestion. If the system is in a sound, healthy condition, with respiration good and the colon clean, it should be next to impossible to take cold. If, however, there is a weak spot in the body, be sure the cold will find it, when, if not promptly dealt with, serious results may ensue. ”

“ VIII. There are many other causes, which produce quiescence of some part of the animal system, as fatigue, hunger, thirst, bad diet, disappointed love, unwholesome air, exhaustion from evacuations, and many others; but the last cause, that we shall mention, as frequently productive of cold fits of fever, is fear or anxiety of mind. The pains, which we are first and most generally acquainted with, have been produced by defect of some stimulus; thus, soon after our nativity we become acquainted with the pain from the coldness of the air, from the want of respiration, and from the want of food. ”

“ This most frequently happens after the body has been temporarily heated by exercise, warm rooms, anger, or intemperance. Hence colds are produced in the external air by resting after exercise, or by drinking cold water. ”

“ After the correspondent has learned that our ancestors had more colds than we, had poorer health, and died twenty years younger, perhaps he will listen to proof that his unclean warm air weakens the body and makes it an easy prey to cold germs. ”

“ What, under such circumstances, ought you to do to stop the cold, and get rid of it, before serious disorder is brought about? Here, again, warm clothing is of the highest value. If the chilled surface be at once closely covered up, and be kept covered, the blood is soon drawn back to the skin, and the internal obstructions are in this way overcome. The best possible way to get rid of a cold quickly, for those who can follow it, is to go to bed as soon as it begins, and to keep there until the cold is cured. ”

“ I have waked in the morning with the snow drifting across the back of my neck, been wet to the skin all day, and gone to bed in my wet clothes, and slept myself dry; and have lain out all day in a November gale, in a hollow scooped in the half-frozen ground of the duck-marsh, and felt never a hair the worse. Scores of similar experiences will rise up in the minds of every camper, hunter, or fisherman. You may catch cold during the first day or two out, before you have got the foul city air, with its dust and bacteria, out of your lungs and throat, but even this rarely happens. ”

“ Kinds of colds.—A person takes most of the germs of colds through his nose and mouth. If they grow only in his nose, we say that he has a cold in his head. If they grow in his throat, he has a sore throat, or tonsillitis. If they reach as far as the upper part of his windpipe, he is hoarse, or has a cough, or the croup. If the germs are planted in his lungs, he may have bronchitis or pneumonia. All these kinds of sickness often spread from one person to another. If one person in a family has a cold, others in the family often catch cold from him. ”

“ What gives the people colds and makes them sick? You hear many say "I had not had a cold this fall, until I came into our new house." Brethren and sisters that have come into the city from living in the canyons, and those who have arrived from the States this season, have not been troubled with colds until they came into warm houses; that gives them colds, by depriving their lungs of the benefit they are organized to receive from the atmosphere. ”

“ The first effect we perceive is a glow of the parts, which is by no means unpleasant, this however increases; and, in the course of half an hour or an hour, a sense of dryness and huskiness comes on, with a sensation of stuffing in the nostrils, and a tendency to a short dry cough: often likewise, if the exposure to cold has been considerable, and the heat afterwards applied great and sudden, we experience a shivering, and other symptoms of fever. ”

“ The dark and gloomy days of winter confine us within doors, and, by reducing our activity and exposure to open air, depress the metabolism; the influence of smoke and fog, gloom of house and streets, cavernous places of business and dark dwellings, intensify the depression. The immunity to a cold after an infection lasts but a short while, and when children return, after the summer holidays, to school and damp chill autumn days, infection runs around. ”

“ The practice of going out of a heated, as well as an impure atmosphere late in the evening, and often without sufficient clothing, exposes the individual to cold, rheumatism, pleurisy, and fever. Many a young lady,—and, I fear, not a few young gentlemen,—get the consumption by taking colds in this manner.
Not only the health of the body, but the mind and morals, too, are often injured. ”

“ Some Questions of Hygiene.—The heat-producing capacity of the body sustains a very important relation to the general health. A sudden chill may result in a number of derangements and is supposed to be a predisposing cause of colds. One's capacity for producing heat may be so low that he is unable to respond to a sudden demand for heat, as in going from a warm room into a cold one. As a consequence, the body is unable to protect itself against unavoidable exposures. ”

“ The second fact of experience, catching cold after sitting in a draft or a chilly room until you begin to cough or sneeze, is one to which a majority of us would be willing to testify personally, and yet it is based upon something little better than an illusion. It is a well-known peculiarity of many fevers and infections to begin with a chill. ”

“ Although exposure to cold does cause such affections as bronchitis, pneumonia, cold in the head, sore throat, and other affections of the respiratory organs, it is more frequently the case that they are the result of a sudden change of temperature, such as experienced in coming out of a crowded assembly in a close, badly-ventilated building, than by actually cold weather. ”

“ How frequently do human beings suffer from colds as the result of a close sultry period at once supervening on a clear cold one? How extensively do chest diseases prevail among horses brought from the clear pure atmosphere of the field, and shut up in close, hot stables? Here, no doubt, there is superadded the impurity of the too often infected air, the change of diet, of exercise and of general care yet we find that affections of the air passages are to a great extent in ratio with the heat of the building. ”