Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

in this water 34 minutes, and then went into a warm

bath at 90 degrees.

Here for the first moments he felt very warm, but his hands and feet gave him pain, and in two minutes, being still in the warm bath, he was seized with shiverings. The water was now increased in heat 6 degrees, but our experimentalift ftill felt cold; the heat was further increased 10 degrees, and after remaining in the warm bath half an hour, he came out fick and very languid, his pulfe was quick and feeble. He paffed a very feverish night, and the next day had wandering pains over his body, with great weakness resembling the incipient fage of a fever.

[ocr errors]

Now it can make little difference whether a perfon pafs from cold air or cold water into warm air or warm water; and I have often feen, fays Dr. BEDDOES, persons who had long been riding in the cold and wet, experience the first fymptoms of fever upon coming into a warm room, fitting near the fire, and drinking Spirits. After, riding in the rain until I have been thoroughly foaked, I have always experienced, says he, a glow, as if my skin had been on fire, merely from putting on dry clothes, and the exertion attending the change of drefs. At the fame time I have

[ocr errors]

felt

felt within my noftrils the drynefs and heat that is perceived at the beginning of a cold, which however I have efcaped by keeping cool and quiet for a time. I have known this exactly to be the cafe with others; and I' have made the obfervation fo often, that I am certain I am right.

A patient lately mentioned to me, fays this ingenious phyfician, among the particulars of her complaint, a circumftance which feems, both on account of its fingularity, and the illustration it affords of an important principle in animal nature, to be worth recording. Her constitution was one of those, where a small irregularity in diet, exposure to cold, &c. produced pain and diforder in the bowels, fometimes arifing to a fevere fit of the colic. The patient having one day occafion to wash fome butter, conceived that by removing her hands occafionally out of the cold Spring water into warm water, she should have a better chance of escaping the accuftomed complaint in her bowels. She accordingly heated fome water as hot as fhe could well bear it, and from time to time transferred her arms out of the cold into the hot water, immerfing them pretty deep in the latter. It was on a Saturday in spring: the next morning the was awakened by violent pain under each axilla, and

was

was likewise fenfible of a confiderable fwelling under each axilla. The inflammation continued, and by Tuesday morning the tumors had increased to the fize of a twopenny loaf each. They foon afterwards broke, and discharged a large quantity of pus. In about a fortnight both wounds were healed. These circumstances indicate a true phlegmonic inflammation, which I fuppofe may be fafely ascribed to the alternate action of heat and cold.

Mr. CLARKSON, in his Effay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, informs us, that when flaves are brought on board, the seamen, to make room for them, are turned out of their apartments, and fleep for the most part on the decks, from the time of their leaving the coast of Africa (where the days are exceffively bot, and the dews exceffively cold and heavy) to their arrival at the West-India iflands. From this bad lodging, he proceeds, and this continual exposure to colds and damps, and fuddenly afterwards to a burning fun, FEVERS originate, which carry many of them off! This fever attacks the whole frame: but the eye commonly feels the inflammation moft. The inflammation of the eyes ter

* Vide Part I. page 54, 55, and 56.

VOL. II.

3 I

minates

minates either in difperfion or fuppuration: in the first inftance the eyes are faved; in the latter they are lost.

The inflammation of the eye is not the only difeafe produced in EGYPT by the fucceffion of het days to cool nights, where it is the custom to fleep during the fummer in the open air, any more than on board our flave fhips; as the reader will find upon recurring to Alpinus and the later travellers. In both fituations caufes and effects run parallel. The well known danger of expofure to dews in hạt climates, and indeed in all climates, in certain cafes, seems to depend on the fame principle, It is alfo probable that the heat of the preceding day enables the dews of the night to prepare the system for the flimulating effects of the heat of the fucceeding day; fo that of two perfons who fhould expose themselves without precaution to the cold of the night and the heat of the following day, he who fhould have been most exbaufted the day before by the heat, would, if other cir cumftances could be rendered alike equal, be most injured by the next alternation,

Thus when any part of the body has been expofed to cold, it is liable to be much more affected by heat and other ftimuli than before the expofure. Of this the method of treating frozen limbs in cold countries affords a beauti

ful

ful and decifive proof. Were a frozen limb to be brought before a fire, or immersed in warm water, a violent inflammation would come on, and speedily terminate in mortification. They therefore take now to rub the parts benumbed with cold, and very gradually expose them to a warm temperature. This cuftom univerfally obtains in all the northern climates, where the rude inhabitants poffefs a method of relief that might do credit to the ingenuity of more enlightened nations, and fuch as is not unworthy of their imitation! The pungent pain felt upon holding an hand much chilled to the fire, is another exemplification of the fame principle, which feems, fays Dr. BEDDOES, to be one of the most general laws of animal nature.

Now after the application of cold, which, according to circumstances, produces a greater or fmaller diminution of the actions of the living fyftem, and at length fleep itself, there may be an infinite number of gradations between a fatal inflammation and a transitory glow, and this according as the previous cold and the fubfequent heat have varied in intenfity;-but whatever be the degree, the effect depends on the fame principle*.

By refpiring a cold atmosphere the fame thing happens to the noftrils, fauces, lungs, as to the external furface

[blocks in formation]
« ForrigeFortsæt »