Thermal comfort, or, Popular hints for preservation from colds, coughs, and consumption : with information upon some points of German practice in the treatment of such cases / by Sir George Lefevre.

  • Lefevre, George William, 1798-1846.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thermal comfort, or, Popular hints for preservation from colds, coughs, and consumption : with information upon some points of German practice in the treatment of such cases / by Sir George Lefevre. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    cessary to seek for those artificial means, which may be under our control. The basis of all these is warmth. The means of procuring it are sometimes difficult, but in many cases practicable. The great desideratum is to avoid the exciting causes, and where those cannot be averted, to mitigate them, as much as possible. It is proved by the bills of mortality that one- fifth of the population dies of the consumption in the British isles, whereas the deaths in northern la- titudes are infinitely fewer from that disease. Whence this anomaly, that cold,—being, as we believe it to be, the great exciting cause of such maladies,—should have so little influence upon hu- man life where it prevails in so great a degree 1 The secret is to be found in the fact, that cold in the northern realms, spends its fury upon vegeta- ble life and inanimate matter, so that only certain species of plants can resist its influence. That animal life would as soon perish is equally evident, but animal life is not exposed to it. The bear, covered by his non-conducting and impene- trable fur, covers himself up under warm leaves, the hare buries himself in the snow, the wolf finds holes, and the fox procures dens; and domestic an- imals, and those which are necessary to man, are provided with warm habitations. The human spe- cies is protected by the clothing which once pro- tected the animal from the same influence. It is not correct to suppose that the Laplander and the Samoide are impervious to cold, or become accus- tomed to it. That is an error. 'They are more