580 Of the Salubrity of Warm Rooms. 



(Dr. Blane), which can hardly be accounted for but on 

 a supposition that heat prepares and enables the body 

 to support cold. Those persons who, after having 

 remained several years in the hot climates of India, 

 return to reside in this country, do not feel near so 

 much inconvenience from the cold of our climate the 

 first year after their return as they do the second. If 

 they would be persuaded to live in warm rooms when 

 they are within doors, and make a free use of the warm 

 bath, they never would feel any inconvenience from it, 

 and they might with safety take much more exercise in 

 the open air than they now do. 



Occasional exposure to cold when the body is pre- 

 pared to support it, so far from being dangerous or 

 injurious to health, is salubrious in a high degree. 



It is in order that people may be enabled to go 

 abroad frequently, and enjoy the fine, bracing cold of 

 winter, that I am so anxious that they should inhabit 

 warm, comfortable rooms when they are within doors. 

 But if, during the time when they are sitting still without 

 exercise, the circulation of the blood is gradually and 

 insensibly diminished by the cold which surrounds 

 them, and above all by the cold currents of air in which 

 they are exposed, it is not possible that they should be 

 able to support an additional degree of cold without 

 sinking under it. 



They are like water which by long exposure to mod- 

 erate cold in a state of rest has been slowly cooled 

 down below the freezing-point : the smallest additional 

 cold or the small agitation changes it to ice in an in- 

 stant; but water at a higher temperature and full of 

 latent heat will support the same degree of severe frost 

 for a considerable time without appearing to be at all 



