CATCHING COLD. 375 



" The immediate effects of a displacement of blood from the sur- 

 face, and its determination to the internal organs, are not," says the 

 " Lancet," " as was once supposed, sufficient to produce the sort of con- 

 gestion that issues in inflammations. If it were so, an inflammatory con- 

 dition would be the common characteristic of our bodily state. When 

 the vascular system is healthy, and that part of the nervous apparatus by 

 which the caliber of the vessels is controlled performs its proper func- 

 tions normally, any disturbance of equilibrium in the circulatory sys- 

 tem which may have been produced by external cold will be quickly 

 adjusted. Most of the sensations of cold or heat," continues the " Lan- 

 cet," " which are experienced by the hypersensitive have no external 

 cause." They have, however, an internal cause which I have endeav- 

 ored to point out and account for, as well as indicate the natural 

 remedy. A " chilly " person is a sick person, and is in a state predis- 

 posing him to an " attack " — a natural kill-or-cure sickness — whenever 

 external conditions are favorable. But no amount of transient cold, 

 or wet, or draughts, can alone originate the symptoms of " a cold " ; 

 the predisposing cause must of necessity exist, or the effects will be of 

 a wholly different character : temporary discomfort — suffering, per- 

 haps — and, at the worst (if the exposure be of a severe nature, as in 

 the case of a feeble person), a lowering of the general health. Short 

 of the point of freezing to death, or of exposure so severe as to render 

 reaction impossible, the person will get cold and — get warm again, that 

 is all. 



There is a maxim worthy of all acceptation : " If you stuff a cold 

 you will have to starve a fever." Unfortunately abbreviated to " stuff 

 a cold and starve a fever," and utterly misinterpreted, a deal of mis- 

 chief has been done, for which the only compensation evident to my 

 mind is this : those who have accepted the first division of the command 

 have gorged themselves conscientiously ! They have taken allopathic 

 doses of a homoeopathic remedy — similia similihus curantur — with a 

 vengeance ! But when the incipient fever became well established did 

 these superobedient children of Nature obey the second injunction? 

 No, and with good reason, apparently — the first prescription proving a 

 failure (?), they did not dare to try the second ! Now and then, how- 

 ever, it has been tried, either because of the courage or exceptional 

 intelligence on the part of the patient or his physician, and with uni- 

 form good results. Where the " fasting-cure " is applied in extenso, 

 with appropriate water and air baths, sunshine, and perfect ventilation, 

 the worst forms of fever rarely have a " run " of ten days — three or 

 four days will often suffice to insure convalescence ; whereas, under the 

 milk-and-brandy, beef-tea, and tonic treatment, and " eating little and 

 often," the flames are fed until the patients are burned to skeletons, and 

 a large percentage fatally. 



I think I should be justified, in the estimation of most people, in 

 saying that mankind are by nature, or at least from custom, if not 



