A Lecture on the Preservation of Health

by Thomas Garnett

People are afraid of going out into the cold air; but if they conduct themselves properly afterwards, they will never be in the least danger from it. Indeed the action of cold, unless it be excessive, never produces any bad effects.

Many of you will, no doubt, think me here in an error; but I hope you will not long entertain that opinion. You will say that you have had frequent experience to the contrary; that you have often gone out into the cold air, and have caught dreadful colds. That this is owing to the action of cold, I will deny; nay, I will assert, that if a person go out into air which is very cold, and remain in it for a very long time, he will never perceive any symptoms of what is called a cold so long as he remains there.

A common cold is attended with a running of the nose, hoarseness, and cough, with a considerable degree of feverish heat, an dryness of the skin.—Now it is universally agreed, that this disorder is an inflammation, or is of an inflammatory nature; it is an inflammation of the smooth, moist skin which lines the nostrils, and goes down the wind-pipe into the lungs; but as cold is only a diminution of heat, or a diminution of a stimulus acting upon the body, it is impossible that such a diminution can cause a greater action or excitement; we might as well expect to fill a vessel by taking water out of it. But let us see how a cold, as it is commonly called, is usually produced. When a person in cold weather goes out into the air, every time he draws in his breath, the cold air passes through his nostrils and windpipe into the lungs, and in thus diminishing the heat of the parts, allows their excitability to accumulate, and renders them more liable to be affected by the succeeding heat. So long as that person continues in the cold air, he feels no bad effects; but if he come into a warm room, he first perceives a glow within his nostrils and breast, as well as all over the surface of the body. Soon afterwards, a disagreeable dryness and huskiness will be felt in the nostrils and breast. By and by a short, dry, tickling cough comes on. He feels a shivering, which makes him draw nearer to the fire, but all to no purpose; the more he tries to heat himself, the more chill he becomes. All the mischief is here caused by the violent action of the heat on the accumulated excitability. For want of a knowledge of this law, these disagreeable, and often dangerous complaints are brought on; when they might be avoided with the greatest ease.

When you take a ride into the country on a cold day, you find yourselves very cold; as soon as you go into a house, you are invited to come to the fire, and warm yourselves; and what is still worse, to drink something warm and comfortable, to keep out the cold, as the saying is. The inevitable consequence of this, is, to bring on the complaints which I have just described, which might with more propriety be called, heats than colds. But how easily might these complaints have been avoided! When you come out of a very cold atmosphere, you should not at first go into a room that has a fire in it, or if you cannot avoid that, you should keep for a considerable time at as great a distance from the fire as possible, that the accumulated excitability may be gradually exhausted, by the moderate and gentle action of heat; and then you may bear the heat of the fire without any danger: but, above all, refrain from taking warm or strong liquors while you are cold. If a person have his hands or feet exposed to a very severe cold, the excitability of those parts will be so much accumulated, that if they should be brought suddenly near the fire, a violent inflammation, and even a mortification will take place, which has often happened; or, at any rate, that inflammation called Chilblains will be produced, from the violent action of the heat upon the accumulated excitability of those parts; but, if a person so circumstanced, was to put his hands or feet into cold water, very little warmer than the atmosphere to which he had been exposed, or rub them with snow, which is not often colder than 32 or 30 degrees, the morbid excitability will be gradually exhausted, and no bad consequences will ensue.

When a part of the body only has been exposed to the action of cold, and the rest kept heated; if, for instance, a person in a warm room sits so that a current of air coming through a broken pane, should fall upon any part of the body, that part will be soon affected with an inflammation, which is usually called a rheumatic inflammation. From what has been said, it will be easy to account for this circumstance. The excitability of the part is accumulated by the diminution of its heat; but at the same time, the rest of the body and blood is warm; and this warm blood acting upon a part where the excitability is accumulated, will cause an inflammation; to which, the more you apply heat, the worse you make it.—From these considerations, we may lay it down as a fact, and experience supports us in so doing, that you may in general go out of warm into cold air without much danger; but, that you can never return suddenly from the cold into the warm air with perfect impunity.

Hence, we may lay down the following rule, which, if strictly observed, would prevent the frequent colds we meet with in winter. When the whole body, or any part of it, is chilled, bring it to its natural feeling and warmth by degrees.

But if, for want of observing this necessary caution, a cold, as it is called, should have seized a person, let us consider what is proper to be done.

It will, from the preceding reasoning, appear very improper to make the room where you sit warmer than usual, to increase the quantity of bed-clothes, to wrap yourself up in flannel, or particularly to drink a large quantity of barley-water, gruel, or tea, almost boiling hot, by way of diluting, as it is called, and forcing a perspiration; this will infallibly make the disorder worse, in the same manner as confining inoculated persons in warm rooms would make their small-pox more violent.

Perhaps there would be scarcely such a thing as a bad cold, if people, when they found it coming on, were to keep cool, and avoid wine and strong liquors, and confine themselves for a short time to a simple diet of vegetable food, drinking only toast and water. Instances are by no means uncommon, where a heat of the nostrils, difficulty of breathing, a short, tickling cough, and other symptoms, threatening a violent cold, have gone off entirely in consequence of this plan being pursued.

Colds would be much less frequent, were we to take more pains to accommodate our dress to the season: if we were warmly clothed in cold weather, our excitability would not be accumulated by the action of the cold. If a greater proportion of females fall victims to this disease, is it not because, losing sight, more than men, of its primary purpose, they regulate their dress solely by fantastic ideas of elegance? If happily, as is observed by Dr. Beddoes, our regret should recall the age of chivalry, to break the spell of fashion would be an atchievement worthy the most gallant of our future knights. Common sense has always failed in the adventure; and our ladies, alas! are still compelled, whenever the enchantress waves her wand, to expose themselves half undressed, to the fogs and frosts of our climate.