210 Dr. Fothergill on the practice of sleeping on the wet ground. 
Now if sudden death be often occasioned by drinking either of: 
these waters, when the body is heated, how much greater would seem > 
the danger, if drank when cooled down about 26 degrees lower viz.» 
to the freezing point ? Yet how many, when heated by dancing, or oth- 
er violent exercise, eagerly assuage their thirst by-copious draughts of 
ice water, or lemonade, cooled by ice? Nay, by freely eating ice itself. 
in the various forms of ice creams? Yet hazardousas this practice un- 
doubtedly is, few authentic instances of sudden death from that cause, 
have come to our knowledge. Is that delicate organ, the stomach, 
then, able to bear the sudden and violent transitions of heat and. cold, 
better than the outward surface of the body ? Is not the skin the ex- 
quisite organ of feeling, and is it not more tremblingly. alive to vari- 
ous impressions, than the stomach itself ? Otherwise whence is it, that” 
a person can drink tea and coffee extremely hot without emotion, 
yet, if let fall on- his skin, complains bitterly of being scalded? 
Admitting this, it tends to corroborate our present doctrine. _ For 
of all the remote causcs of human maladies, the sudden or partial — 
application of cold and moisture to a body predisposed is evident-— 
ly one of the most frequent and most injurious. Were it not for 
this, and the periodical returns of the malignant and remittent fever (of 
which, during an epidemic-constitution, exposure to cold is known to - 
be a powerful exciting cause), the summer would, in all Be 
prove the most healthy season. 
it may not be improper in this place just to hint a neoesaney a cau- 
tion respecting another custom, fashionable among all ranks of socie- 
ty, as it doubtless endangers health. It is the habit of sitting, long 
after sunset, on summer evenings in the open air, exposed to the de- . 
scending dews; ofien on cold marble step§ before the doors; or in 
passages in the full current of the night air. But however. pleasing - 
and refreshing the cool air of the evening may appear, after the in- 
