132 PHYSIC 



just begins "to strike the view," we should further say, 

 about the subject of "a severe cold," that some symptoms 

 of it, such as the "feeling of pains and aches all over," 

 seem to arise from the disturbance of innervation, due to 

 violent and irregular distribution of the nervine or cerebro- 

 spinal fluid, and to the consequent interference with, and 

 impairment of, nerve force production and circulation, and 

 that the feeling of "exhaustion of strength," which is 

 experienced in the more severe cases, seems also to depend 

 upon and be traceable to the same causes. Moreover, on 

 such and other anomalous circumstances depend the many 

 "indescribable" feelings and symptoms that are yet 

 required to fill up the picture of a " bad cold." 



At this stage, when the subject of the attack realises 

 that he has caught a "bad cold," we, if consulted, per- 

 ceive that disturbances of the blood circulation begin to 

 play an important, but still secondary, part, and that the 

 time is rapidly arriving when convalescence must declare 

 itself, or further pathological changes of a more or less 

 far-reaching description will follow ; such, for instance, as 

 characterise the progress of acute visceral disease, the con- 

 sideration of which, so far as we can continue it, will 

 follow more conveniently under proper clinical titles. 



Nevertheless, we might consistently remark here that, 

 if spontaneous cessation of the phenomena of "cold" has 

 not taken place, then a simple appeal to diaphoresis or 

 cutaneous excretion should be at once made in order to 

 effect its arrest. 



Diaphoresis, however induced, may be understood as 

 a flushing so far as the nervous system is concerned 

 of the peri-neural inter-spaces from their origin in the 

 cerebro-spinal cavity to their termination in the peripheral 

 terminal nerve structures, and of the ejection, of a portion 

 at least, of the cerebro-spinal fluid with, it may be, a 

 proportionate relief to "nerve tension," besides intra- 

 cranial and intra-spinal pressure. 



Should this process not be successful by ordinary and 

 simple means, then it should be effected by an agent or 

 agents, which will at once relieve this pressure and rectify 

 chemical disturbances of the cerebro-spinal fluid or clear 

 it of microbic organisms in the more intensely pathological 



