570 Of' the Salubrity of Warm Rooms. 



tainly get colder air, but I much doubt whether they 

 often get air that is more wholesome to breathe; and it 

 is most certain that the chilling streams and eddies 

 that are occasioned in the room by the fresh air so 

 introduced are extremely dangerous, and often are the 

 cause of the most fatal disorders. 



It is universally allowed to be very dangerous to be 

 exposed in a stream of cold air, especially when stand- 

 ing or sitting still ; but how much must the danger 

 be increased if one side of the body be heated by 

 the powerful rays from a large fire, while the other is 

 chilled by these cold blasts ? And there is this sin- 

 gular circumstance attending these chills, that they 

 frequently produce their mischievous effects without 

 our being sensible of them : for, as the mind is inca- 

 pable of attending to more than one sensation at one 

 and the same time, if the intensity of the sensation 

 produced by the heat on the one side of the body be 

 superior to that of the cold on the other, we shall 

 remain perfectly insensible of the cold, however severe 

 it may really be ; and if we are induced by the disagree- 

 able ness of what we do feel to turn about, or change 

 our position or situation, this movement will be occa- 

 sioned not by the cold, which we do not feel, but by 

 the heat, which being superior in its effect upon us 

 engages all our attention. And hence we may account 

 for those severe colds or catarrhs which are so fre- 

 quently gotten in hot rooms in this country by per- 

 sons who are not conscious at the time of being 

 exposed to any cold, but, on the contrary, suffer great 

 and continual inconvenience from the heat. 



I have said that these colds are gotten in hot rooms, 

 but it would have been more accurate to have said in 



