94 
BRITISH ASSOCIATION.— 1835 . 
Observations on the Effects of Cold on different Parts of the Hu¬ 
man Body , and on a Mode of measuring Refrigeration . By 
Dr, Osborne. 
In this communication Dr. Osborne began by adducing some 
facts to show the importance of cold, viewed as a cause of disease. 
He stated, that of 57, the entire number of patients on the preced¬ 
ing day (13th August, 1835,) in Sir Patrick Duns Clinical Ho¬ 
spital, 34 could distinctly refer to cold as the cause of their com¬ 
plaints, contracted in the following manner: in 12 from damp 
clothes, 5 from damp feet, 3 from bathing, and 14 from cold air 
when heated. This proportion, however, would probably be very 
different in winter. The direct effect of cold on the air-passages of 
the lungs is almost restricted to inflammation at the rima of the 
glottis, and this is usually caused by suddenly rushing from heated 
to cold air. It may be proved that the respired air, being of nearly 
the same temperature as the blood, and not deriving its heat from 
the action of respiration in the lung (see Brodie’s Experiments), 
must, in its passage downwards, be heated to considerably more 
than half the difference between the temperature of the blood and 
that of the air; that, consequently, at its arrival in the air-vesicles 
of the lungs, it must have acquired such a temperature as amounts 
to a protection against the effects of cold. Dr. Osborne considers 
this as a provision of nature in a matter in which we are not able 
to guard ourselves. 
When, owing to an oppression of nervous energy, the healthy 
temperature of the surface is not maintained, then the air arrives at 
the air-vesicles without being heated; hence, he conceives, may be 
explained the numerous instances of sudden death which occur in 
chronic bronchitis and low fevers when sudden depressions of the 
temperature of the atmosphere have taken place during the night. 
In those cases the cold thus admitted to the lungs causes a torpor in 
their capillary circulation; and after death it is found that the blood 
has stagnated in the lungs, and in the veins and right cavities of the 
heart. 
The common opinion that various inflammatory diseases are con¬ 
tracted by sleeping in newly-built houses appears to be ill founded, 
except in as far as the clothes worn by the individual may contract 
moisture. The air under the bedclothes being kept up by the heat 
of the body to the temperature 80°, the only way in which the damp 
air can prove injurious is by the lungs, which, as before stated, are, 
in health, enabled to resist its effects. It appears that in a regiment 
which was quartered in newly-built barracks no injury resulted from 
the damp. 
On the stomach the effect of cold is perceived, not by a sensation 
of cold in that organ, but by thirst, in consequence of reaction, as 
is experienced after taking ices. When the cold is long-continued 
or overpowering, in consequence of feeble reaction, then gastritis is 
produced from torpor of the capillaries. This last mode of expla¬ 
nation is derived from the phenomena observed in the exterior of the 
