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and plenty of animal food, are obtained, scrophula and consumption are diminished almost in the same ratio. The constant inhalation of animal effluvia, may have some influence, as in cases of butchers and cat-gut manufacturers; but, in this case, neither the principle nor the fact is so demonstrable as that clothing and food are preventives. Sources of mechanical irritants, if we may use the term, or those which immediately apply themselves to the lungs, are much dwelt upon by some, especially by foreign authors; but it may be questioned whether most of these are not, to say the least, materially assisted by confinement and an unwholesome position of the body, as in the examples of weavers, tailors, spinners, carpet-manufacturers, flax-dressers, and others.

There is, however, one instance, of mischief springing from this source, which is so remarkable and melancholy, as to deserve special notice. It is that process of the needle manufactory, called dry grinding. It is said that those who engage in this branch of business, do it with the almost certain expectation of its proving eventually fatal, and that the lure of high wages is necessary to procure hands. The persons who are employed in this labour, by which the needles are pointed, are universally, and in a short time affected by symptoms of approaching pulmonary consumption. They go on coughing till they either spit blood, or a thick substance having the appearance of ' matter. They decline in flesh and strength, and seldom sur'vive the fortieth year. Pin makers are said to suffer in the same way.'

It does not require to be stated, that it is the fine particles of matter arising from the materials used in the various manufactories above mentioned, and taken into the lungs, that immediately affect the organs in this deplorable manner. One feels astonished, that, in the last mentioned examples, something is not contrived as a covering for the face, which, without interrupting the breathing, might, in a very great measure, prevent the inhalation of the offending matter.

In going over the alleged sources of the complaint, the question of its contagious or non-contagious nature came in order to be discussed. Our Author adopts the opinion generally held in this country by medical men, that it is not catching. We are, however, much inclined to the opposite side; and suppose that although the infectious nature of consumption is by no means equal to what some continental physicians have conceived it to be, still a long-continued and reiterated application of effluvia, from the lungs of a consumptive individual, may at length operate upon another in the way of infectious matter.

Dr. Heberden, a man above all praise' for fidelity of observation, and freedom from prejudice, strongly inclines to the

opinion of the infectious nature of phthisis. Quid in hac re verum sit,' he says, 'viderint alii; equidem nondum usu magistro eo progressus sum, ut aliquid certi de ea mecum statuere potuerim: fateor autem me vidisse nonnullos tabe periuntes, quorum morbus non aliud probabilius habuit initium, quam quod assidue una fuissent, aut etiam dormissent cum tabidis!

The sentiments of Hoffman are nearly similar, and in a balance of authorities, we think that the positive opinions of such men as Heberden and Hoffman, may very fairly weigh against the negative ones; that is to say, the total silence on this controverted subject, of Hippocrates and Celsus.

British physicians we conceive to have been misled in reference to this inquiry, by the confessedly slighter, more tardy, and more insidious operation of consumptive miasma, than of any other infectious matter, with which we are acquainted. In instances of the disease being communicated from one to another, it should seem that there must have been a slight predisposition at least in the recipient; for although, in this qualified way, we conceive consumption to be communicable, yet we have no notion that such is the case with scrophula.

We are now advanced to the last chapter of the work under review; that, in which the treatment of the disease is considered. The first suggestion which presents itself, in reference to the preventive treatment of consumption, is this:-cold being confessedly a commonly exciting cause of the complaint, and yet the affection being comparatively rare in several countries where the cold is more intense than in Britain, are not the inhabitants of such countries in possession of means to counteract its noxious tendency, of which we are either ignorant or neglectful? This is, in truth, the case. It is a known fact, that even a hardy Russian is more sensible to cold, and more inconvenienced by it in this country, than he is in his own; and on the same principle, an Englishman suffers less from a winter in Petersburgh, than from a winter in London.

The proverbial variableness of our climate most unquestionably goes some way towards the solution of this apparent enigma; but, we believe, that the habits and modes of living in the respective countries, furnish as with still more assistance towards the explanation of the fact in question. Englishmen act upon erroneous notions on the subject of heat and cold. So much importance seems to us attached to the maintenance and development of this position, that we shall here endeavour to enlarge a little respecting the grounds on which it is advanced; and in doing so, we shall first extract from our Author the relation he gives, from Dr. Guthrie, of the habits of the lower classes in Russia. We shall then shortly investigate the laws of temperature in

relation to the living body; and conclude this part of our subject by attempting a practical application of such laws, to the subject which is more immediately under discussion.

The Russian boor (says Dr. Guthrie) lives in a wooden house, made with his own hatchet, his only instrument, in the use of which he is most dexterous: it is caulked with moss so as to be very snug and close. It is furnished with an oven, which answers the triple purpose of heating the house, dressing the victuals, and supporting on its flat top the greasy matress on which he and his wife lie. From over the oven, which is ⚫ on one side of the room, are laid some boards reaching to, and supported by, the opposite wall, raised a little above the stove so as to receive its heated air. On these sleep the children and secondary personages of the hut, for the oven itself is a luxury reserved for the first. Round the room runs a bench, with a table in the middle, and in the corner a sort of cupboard for the reception of saints, before whom small tapers frequently burn, or a lamp with hemp oil. During the long severe win⚫ter season, the cold prevents them from airing this habitation, so that you may easily conceive that the air cannot be very pure, considering that four, five, or six people, eat and sleep in one room, and undergo during the night, a most stewing process from the heat and closeness of their situation; insomuch that they have the appearance of being dipped in water, and 'raise a steam and smell in the room not offensive to themselves, but scarcely supportable by those whom curiosity may lead 'thither.'

And again, speaking of their clothing, &c. he says;—

In the first place, they go very warmly clothed when out of 'doors, although they wear nothing but a shirt and a pair of linen drawers when within the legs and feet in particular are remarkably guarded against the cold by many piles of coarse flannel, with a pair of boots over all; at the same time that their bodies feel all the warmth of sheep-skin, and, nothing is left open to the action of the air but the face and neck, which last though never covered, yet coughs and sore throats ' are seldom heard of; nay, they are disorders which we should almost forget to treat, did not foreigners keep us in use. Their religion happily conspires with the unavoidable bodily ' dirtiness attached to their situation, to send them to their vapour baths once or twice a week: here they wash away with vapour, and afterwards with water in a condensed state, the dirt, that, by obstructing the pores, is so well known to promote 'putrid diseases; at the same time that they most effectually open the cuticular emunctories, and throw off any obstructed perspiration that might have otherwise acted as a fomes to 'begin the septic process of the body; and lastly they undergo

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nightly, as I mentioned, a degree of perspiration, which enables 'the coachmen, for example, to sit the whole day and severe 'winter evening on the box, or at least, out of doors, without ever dreaming of what we call catching cold, as they throw off every night what may have been retained in the day, and, to use a vulgar phrase, may be said to clear out as they go; but 'keep them from the nocturnal luxury of their oven, and you 'kill them in a week.' So far Dr. Guthrie.

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Our Author goes on to say,—

Here, then, we find, that warm clothing, warm habitations, and warm bathing, enable men who are exposed, during a number of hours every day, to an intensely cold atmosphere, to bear that exposure with impunity,'

an effect, we may add, exactly contrary to what our English prejudices would anticipate from such habits.

The vulgar notion in this country on the subject of heat and cold, is, that much exposure to the former, or indulgence in it, renders the body more liable to be injuriously affected by the latter; an opinion which the above relation proves to have an unstable foundation; nay, it is a demonstrable fact, that in the very degree of previous subjection to heat, is the capability of enduring, or being exposed with impunity to, subsequent cold. We may indeed state it as an axiom, that an individual is never more, nor indeed, so much, injured by cold after the body has been heated, as he would have been by the same degree of cold, had there been no previous augmentation of temperature; and that our common apprehensions of going out in the cold air, when the body is hot, are altogether false and unfounded.

The experiments of Dr. George Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden have been so often quoted in relation to this subject, that we should feel reluctant to bring them again forward, were it not, that in connexion with the account we have given from Dr. Southey, of the habits of the Russian, they are so well calculated to illustrate the fact we are now anxious to establish and impress.

These gentlemen (Dr. Fordyce and Sir Charles Blagden) exposed themselves to a heat almost beyond endurance, and immediately after, without any precaution, went into a cold room, and continued there some minutes before they began to dress. In like manner, the Russian goes reeking from his vapour baths, and immediately rolls his naked body in snow; and at other times, comes out from baths of water that are heated beyond almost what he is able to bear, and instantaneously plunges into contiguous cold ones.

But let us appeal, as Dr. Southey has done, to individual feeling; and ask whether, of two persons, setting out in a mail

coach, on a cold night, the one well warmed when he takes his seat, the other shivering from cold,' the individual who started warm, will not bear the cold better, and be less liable to injury from it than the other. There are no travellers who have tried the experiment, that will be at a loss to answer this question. And we may further add, that a person who had enjoyed the advantages of warm habitations, and comfortable clothing, for a month previous to the journey, would be less liable to be injured by it, than another of the same constitution, and at the same standard of health, who had been housed and habited during the same period, in a way that by many would be thought to insure hardi

ness.

Uneasy sensation (Dr Southey well observes) is always the result of a deviation from the healthy state in some part or parts of the body, and is in all cases to be obviated if possible Nothing, therefore, can be more absurd, than to suppose that the endurance of a painful degree of cold for any considerable time, can contribute to strengthen the constitution.'

We must anticipate and endeavour to reply to one or two obvious objections, which might, if unanswered. seem to invalidate the doctrine we are endeavouring to prove.

How is it, it will be urged, upon the principles now argued for, that colds are evidently contracted by passing from heated assemblies, into cold carriages, and damp streets? In teply to this, it may be said, that the individual who may have suffered from such exposure, had not been in a state of heat, so much as of fatigue and exhaustion; and that the mischief in question would be obviated or very materially lessened, by a previous retirement to a well warmed room, so as to step into the carriage with a surcharge, rather than a diminished quantity of heat. Individuals too, under the circumstances suppose, are, it is well known, disproportionately ill-covered about the feet and legs; and this partial exposure, we wish it never to be forgotten, is more likely to be attended with hurtful consequences than complete nakedness.

Indeed, the fact of partial exposure, if properly regarded, would be sufficient to explain the whole difficulty. Thus, a person in a highly heated state, shall imprudently take a large draught of cold water, and the consequence si be a violent spasm or perhaps inflammation of the stomach In this case the injury is unquestionably from the cold a plic .tion to a heated part; but, had the same degree of cold been applied to the whole body, the reduction of temperature would then have been equable and general, and no irregular or diseased action occasioned.

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