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MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS.

On the Influence of Cold upon the Health of the Inhabitants of Lendon. From the Philosophical Trans

actions.

THE extraordinary mildness of last January, compared with the unusual severity of the January preceding, affords a peculiarly favour. able opportunity of observing the effect of each of these seasons, contrasted with each other. For of these two successive winters, one has been the coldest, and the other the warmest, of which any regular account has ever been kept in this country. Nor is this by any means an idle speculation, or matter of mere cariosity; for one of the first steps towards preserving the health of our fellow-creatures, is to point out the sources from which diseases are to be apprehended. And what may make the present inquiry more particularly useful, is, that the re. sult, as I hope cicarly to make ap. pear by the following statements, is entirely contrary to the preju. dices usually entertained upon this subject.

During last January, nothing was more common than to hear expres. sions of the unseasonableness of the weather; and fears least the want of the usual degree of cold, should be productive of putrid dis. eases, and I know not what other causes of mortality. On the other

hand, "a bracing cold,” and “a clear frost," are familiar in the mouth ofevery Englishman; and what he is taught to wish for, as among the greatest promoters of health and vigour.

Whatever deference be due to received opinions, it appears to me however from the strongest evi. dence, that the prejudices of the world ar. upon this point at least unfounded. The average degrees of heat upon Fahrenheit's thermometer kept in London during the month of January 1795, was 23° in the morning, and 29.4 in the afternoon. The average in January 1796, was 43°.5 in the morning, and 50°.1 in the afternoon. A difference of above twenty degrees! And if we turn our attention from the comparative coldness of these months to the corresponding health. iness of each, collected from the weekly bills of mortality, we shall find the result no less remark. able. For in five weeks between the 31st of December 1794, and the 3d of February 1795, the whole number of burials amounted to 2823; and in an equal period of five weeks between the 30th of December 1795 and the 2d of February 1796, to 1471. So that the excess of the mortality in January 1795 above that of January 1796, was not less than of 1352 persons. A number sufficient surely to awak.

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ken the attention of the most prejudiced admirers of a frosty winter. And though I have only stated the evidence of two years, the same conclusion may universally be drawn; as I have learned from a careful examination of the weekly bills of mortality for many years. These two seasons were chosen as being each of them very remarkable, and in immediate succession one to the other, and in every body's recollection.

among those who are said in the bills to die above 60 years of age, how regularly the tide of mortality' follows the influence of this prevailing cause: be vailing cause so that a person I used to such inquiries, may form. no contemptible judgment of the severity of any of our winter months, merely by attending to this circumstance. Thus their number last January was not much above one-fifth of what it had been in the same month the year before. The article of asthma, as might be ex. pected, is prodigiously increased, and perhaps includes no inconsiderable part of the mortality of the aged. After these come apoplexies and palsies, fevers, consumptions, and dropsies. Under the two last of which are contained a large proportion of the chronical diseases of this country: all which seem to be hurried on to a premature termi nation. The whole will most rea dily be seen at one view in the fol. lowing table.

It may not be impertinent to the objects of this society, without entering too much into the province of medicine, to consider a little more particularly the several ways in which this effect may be supposed to be produced; and to point out some of the principal injuries which people are liable to sustain in their health from a severe frost. And one of the first things that must strike every mind engaged in this investigation, is its effect on old people. It is curious to observe

1795

1795.

Week

WholeNo Aged above! ending Mean heat. of deaths.

60.

Apoplexy

Asthma and Palsy. Fever. Consumption. Dropsy.

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Week

WholeNo. Aged above ending Mean heat. of deaths. 65.

Apoplexy

Asthma and Palsy. Fever. Consumption. Dropsy.

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Notwithstanding the plague, the remittent fever, the dysentery, and the scurvy, have so decreased, that their very name is almost unknown in London; yet there has, I know not how, arisen a prejudice concerning putrid diseases, which seems to have made people more and more apprehensive of them, as the danger has been growing less. It must in great measure be attributed to this, that the consumption of Peruvian bark in this country has, within the last fifty years, increased from 14,000 to above 100,000 pounds annually. And the same cause has probably contributed, from a mistaken mode of reasoning, to prepossess people with the idea of the wholesomeness of a hard frost. But it has in another place * been very ably demonstrated that a long frost is eventually productive of the worst putrid fevers that are at this time known in London; and that heat does in fact prove a real preventive against that disease. And although this may be said to be a very remote effect of the cold, it is not therefore the less real in its influence upon the mortality of London. Accordingly a comparison of the numbers in the foregoing table will shew that very nearly twice as many persons died of fevers in January 1795, as did in the corresponding month of this year. I might go on to observe that the true scurvy was last year generated in the metropolis from the same causes extended to an unusual length. But these are by no means the only ways, nor indeed do they seem to be the principal ways, in which a frost operates to the destruction of great numbers of people. The poor, as

Nor

they are worse protected from the
weather, so are they of course the
greatest sufferers by its inclemency.
But every physician in London,
and every apothecary, can add
his testimony, that their business
among all ranks of people never
fails to increase, and to decrease
with the frost. For if there be any
whose lungs are tender, any whose
constitution has been impaired ei-
ther by age, or by intemperance,
or by disease, he will be very lia-
ble to have all his complaints in-
creased, and all his infirmities ag-
gravated by such a season.
must the young and active think
themselves quite secure, or fancy
their health will be confirmed by
imprudently exposing themselves.
The stoutest man may meet with
impediments to his recovery from
accidents otherwise inconsiderable;
or may contract inflammations,, or
coughs, and lay the foundation of
the severest ills.
In a country
where the prevailing complaints
among all orders of people are
colds, coughs, consumptions, and
rheumatisms, no prudent man can
surely suppose that unnecessary ex-
posure to an inclement sky; that
priding oneself upon going without
any additional clothing in the se-
verest winter; that inuring one-
self to be hardy at a time that
demands our cherishing the firm-
est constitution lest it suffer; that
braving the winds, and challeng-
ing the rudest efforts of the sea-
son, can ever be generally useful
to Englishmen. But if generally,
and upon the whole, it be inexpe-
dient, then ought every one for
himself to take care that he be not
the sufferer. For many doctrines
very importantly erroneous; ma-
ny remedies either vain, or even

* Observations on the jail fever by Dr. Hunter, Med. Trans. Vol. III.

noxious,

noxious, are daily imposed upon the world for want of attention to this great truth; that it is from general effects only, and those founded upon extensive experience, that any maxim to which each individual may with confidence refer, can possibly be established.

The Domiphobia, or dread of Home.
From the Monthly Magazine.
SIR,

I very much approve of your allotting a particular part of your magazine to the valuable purposes of medical improvement; and what has been already done, will, I hope, lay the foundation of a series of communications, from which physicians may derive great advantage. From entertaining so high an opinion of this part of your magazine, I am induced to offer my mite, by contributing a few remarks on a disease, not yet touch. ed upon by your medical correspondents, but which, by the time this communication will appear, must be pretty well known in most families. It is very prevalent in the months of June and July, is at the height in August, begins to decline in September, and about the end of October generally disap. pears, though much will depend upon the weather.

I am somewhat at a loss to describe this disorder, because being of very recent appearance in this country, it has escaped the attention of Sauvages, Vogel, Cullen, and all our late Notologists. It has some symptoms peculiar to the class of fevers, and some to that of inflammations, but it is a disease, if I may use the phrase, so original, so much per se, that we must be

content to let it be the root of peculiar class, which may hereaf ter be divided into species, when the faculty shall have made it more their study.

I call it, merely for distinction's sake, the Domiphobia, or dread of home, which is the principa! symptom; it begins, as I said be. fore, about the month of June, or earlier, for I have at this moment a family under my care, who are dreadfully afflicted with it. The mother, a remarkably healthylooking, and indeed a very hand. some woman, complains of a wasting of the flesh, want of appetite, listlessness, and dejection. The two daughters, though possessed of the finest bloom of complexion, are inclined to consumption, have also lost their appetites, and are, to use their mother's expression, in a very alarming situation. The sons have various pulmonic symptoms, shortness of breath, cough, and complain that the smoke of London entirely disorders them. The hus band is the only person who has escaped the disorder, although he seems so much distressed at the sight of his family, that I should not wonder if he caught it from them. Every medicine I have pre scribed, has failed in its operation. Indeed, I must confess, that this is one of those disorders, in which we are not to expect a cure from chemicals or Galenicals. On the contrary, if we leave nature to perform her work, a cure is imme. diately found, for nature suggests to the patients, from the very first attack of the disease, that it can be relieved only by a jaunt to a watering place. And hence a very expert practitioner in my neighbourhood, chooses to call it

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