222 PHYSIOLOGY AND HEALTH. 



of a stage-coach sits on his elevated and unprotected seat in 

 face of the severest winds of winter, for one or two hours, or 

 even more, without apparent suffering, while his passengers, 

 less hardy than himself, and perhaps much more heavily 

 clothed, are shivering with cold. He has endured this ex- 

 posure daily through the entire winter, and for successive 

 years, and has become hardened ; but they have been accus- 

 tomed to the mild temperature of houses and shops, or, if 

 they lived a while in open air, they kept themselves warm 

 with active labor. 



535. This coachman is a man of robust constitution; he 

 eats heartily and digests easily, and is well nourished. He 

 attained gradually to this power of endurance, and now he 

 does not suffer. The pilot, the market-man, &c., who enjoy 

 equally good original health/ and have gone through a simi- 

 lar training, may bear the cold as well as he does. They 

 too are hardened. But more feeble and less active men 

 cannot thus expose themselves, without danger. There is a 

 common but erroneous notion that any one can harden him- 

 self by exposure, and .become able to endure severe cold 

 without much outward protection. I have known some 

 sedentary men, whose days were spent in warm rooms 

 or shops, attempt to harden themselves by going abroad in 

 the winter without outward garments ; but they failed to 

 accomplish their purpose. They did not begin with slight 

 trials, and, proceeding gradually, go by slow degrees from 

 small, to greater and greater exposures; but they began 

 with the greatest. They had not the robust health, the 

 hearty appetite and vigorous digestion, nor the energy of 

 muscular power, that belonged to laboring men, and con- 

 sequently they did not generate an increase of internal heat 

 to maintain the extraordinary radiation. Instead of return- 

 ing from their cold walks or rides with a glow upon their 

 cheeks, and the flush of ruddy health, they were pale and 

 cold. Instead of a reaction afterwards, their cutaneous cir- 

 culation continued languid, and they were not easily warmed. 

 They became more susceptible of cold, rather than more 



