Taking Cold

Of all the erroneous notions pertaining to the preservation of health, no one is iraught with more mischief than that about taking cold. According to the popular, and I luay also say to some exteut professional view, taking cold is the greatest disease and death producer in the world. EVlly 80 por optif. of thoso vKu consult phy8icians preinise by saying they have taken cold. 11 a relapse occuis during convalesceuce, ten to one the blaine is laid on the action of a cold. " My pain is greater, I must have taken cold; cy cough is worse, I must have taken cold ; I do not feel as well this morning, I think I have taken cold, but I don't see how," are expressions which tha physician hears a dozen times a day. The latter is thereby often led to the reflection that if it were not tbr death-dealing colds he would have little todo, and convalescenoe would seldoni be interrupted. But if the physiciau takes the trouble to think a little more upon this suoject, he will be convinced that to his own craft is due this stereotyped and neverending complaint of his patients about taking cold. The sick and their friends nearly always take theii cue about diseaBe and its causes from the trusted family doctor ; and he accounts very often indeed tor an aggravation of the symptoms of those under hi charge (the cause of which aggravation, by the w&.y, may be; and often is, very difficult to detect) by tbe easy and satisfying explanation of having taken cold. Iu this way he gets over the trouble of attempting to make plain to untutored ininds what is cl' ten a puzzling problem to the most trained intellect, and at the same time sbifts tbe responsibility for the relapse on the uncomplainiiig and much abused weather. 80 it is that men and wonien have been led to regard climatic changes as the greatest euemy to their health ; if it were not for thein, their health would be next to perfect from the beginning to the end of the year. Thousands of consumptives, especially in the fitst and second stages of tbe disease, are ürmly of the opinión that if they only could escape the malign influence of one cold after another, their recovery would be assured. To this end precautions ot the most thorough character are scrupulously observed, and yet cold after cold is taken ; the patiënt, xuother, or nurse kuows not how. When the human body is at its prime, with youth, vigor, purity, and a good constitution on its side, no degree of ordina ry exposure to cold gives rise to any unpleasaut effects. AU the ordinary prejau tions against colds, noughs. and rheuinalic pains may be disregarded and no ill effects ensue. But let the blood become impure, let the body become deranged fruin any acquired disorder, or let the vigor begin to wane, and the infirmities of age be left by occasional derangements in some vital part, either from inherited or acquired abuses, and the action of cold will excite more or.less disorder of some kind, and the forin of this disorder, or tbe disease which will ensue, will be determined by the kind of pre-existing blood impurity, or the pre existing fault of the organic process. If the pre-existing fault be in a deficiënt excretion of lactic and uric acids by the kidneys and skin the disease developed by the cold will be rheumatic ; if the lungs be at fault, either by acquired or inherited abuses, inflammation will be likely to ensue ; orif there be conjoined with the pulmonary fault an impure condition of the blood from the long-continued re-breathing of breathed air, con8umption will not unlikely show itself. In no other way can the influence of cold in the developuient of diverse dis eases be accounted for ; developing this disease in one, and that disease in another ; this disense at one time in a person, and another disease at another time : while at other times and seasons, great and prolonged exposure to cold is harmless. - Sanitaria n for June. The "Worcester Press speaks of a contemporary who hires a small boy to come in at intervals with a step-ladder and dust off the tops of his ears. Women are fast becoming familiar with politics. We have heard of a woman who believes so thoroughly in innation that she blows her husbaud up three times a day.