Part 5 (1/2)
On the other hand, don't fall into the widespread delusion that because air is cold it is necessarily pure. Some of the vilest air imaginable is that shut up in those sepulchres known as ”best bedrooms,” which chill your very marrow. The rheumatism or snuffles you get from sleeping between their icy sheets comes from the crop of bacilli which has lurked there since they were last aired. The ”no heat in a bedroom” dogma is little better than superst.i.tion, born of those fecund parents which mate so often, stinginess and puritanism. Practically, the room which will _never_ have a window opened in it in winter is the one without any heat.
Similarly, the air in an underheated church, hall, or theatre is almost sure to be foul. The janitor will keep every opening closed in order to get the temperature up. Some churches are never once decently ventilated from December to May. The same old air, with an ever richer crop of germs, is reheated and served up again every Sunday. The ”odor of sanct.i.ty” is the residue of the breaths and perspiration of successive generations. Cleanliness may be next to G.o.dliness, but it is sometimes an astonis.h.i.+ngly long step behind it.
The next important step is to keep clean, both externally and internally: externally, by cold bathing, internally, by exercise. The only reason why a draft ever hurts us is because we are full of self-poisons, or germs. The self-poisons can be best got rid of by abundant exercise in the open air and plenty of pure, cold H2O, internally and externally.
Food has very little to do with these autotoxins, and they are as likely to form on one diet as another. In fact, they form normally and in states of perfect health, and are poisonous only if retained too long.
It is simply a question of burning them up, and getting rid of them quickly enough, by exercise, with its attendant deep breathing and perspiration. The lungs are great garbage-burners. Exercise every day till you puff and sweat.
A blast of cold air suddenly stops the escape of these poisons through the skin and throws them on the lungs, liver, or kidneys. The resulting disturbance is the second commonest form of a ”cold,” and covers perhaps a third of all cases occurring. This is the cold that can be prevented by the cold bath. Keep the skin hardened and toned up to such a pitch that no reasonable chill will stop it from excreting, and you are safe.
Never depend on clothing. The more you pile on, the more you choke and ”flabbify” the skin and make it ready to ”strike” on the first breath of cold air. Too heavy flannels are cold-breeders, and chest-protectors inventions of the evil one. Trust the skin; it is one of the most important and toughest organs in the body, if only given half a chance.
But the most frequent way in which drafts precipitate a cold is by temporarily lowering the vital resistance. This gives the swarms of germs present almost constantly in our noses, throats, stomachs, bowels, etc., the chance they have been looking for--to break through the cell barrier and run riot in the body.
So long as the pavement-cells of our mucous membranes are healthy, they can keep them out indefinitely. Lower their tone by cold, fatigue, underfeeding, and their line is pierced in a dozen places at once. One of the many horrifying things which bacteriology has revealed is that our bodies are simply alive with germs, even in perfect health. One enthusiastic dentist has discovered and described no less than _thirty-three_ distinct species, each one numbering its billions, which inhabit our gums and teeth. Our noses, our stomachs, our intestines,--each boasts a similar population. Most of them do no harm at all; indeed, some probably a.s.sist in the processes of digestion; others are camp-followers, living on our leavings; others, captive enemies which have been clubbed into peaceful behavior by our leucocyte and anti-body police.
For instance, not a few healthy noses and throats contain the bacillus of diphtheria and the diplococcus of pneumonia. We are beginning to find that these last two groups will bear watching. Like camp-followers elsewhere, they carry knives, and are not above using them on the wounded after dark. In fact, they have a cheerful habit of taking a hand in any disturbance that starts in their bailiwick, and usually on the side against the body-cells.
Finally, while clearly realizing that the best defense is attack, and that our chief reliance should be upon keeping ourselves in such fighting trim that we can ”eat 'em alive” at any time, there is no sense in running easily avoidable risks, and we should keep away from infection as far as possible. If a child comes to school heavy-eyed, hoa.r.s.e, and snuffling, the teacher should send him home at once. He will only waste his time attempting to study in that trim, and may infect a score of others. Moreover, it may be remarked, parenthetically, that these are also symptoms of the beginning of measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, and two-thirds of all cases of these would be sent home before they could infect any one else if this procedure were the rule.
If your own child develops a cold, if mild, keep him playing out-of-doors by himself; or if severe, keep him in bed, in a well-ventilated room, for three or four days. He'll get better twice as quick as if at school, and the rest of the household will escape.
When you wake with a stuffed head and aching bones, stay at home for a few days if possible, out of regard for your customers, your fellow-clerks, or your office force, as well as yourself. If one of your employees comes to work s.h.i.+vering, give him three days' vacation on full pay. If it runs through the force, you'll lose five times as much in enforced sick-leaves, slowness, and mistakes. Above all, don't go to any public gatherings,--to church, the theatre, or parties,--when you are snuffling and coughing. You are not exactly a joy to your beholders, even if you don't infect them. It is advisable, and well worth the trifling trouble and expense, to fumigate thoroughly with formalin all churches, theatres, and schoolrooms at least once a month. Reasonable and public-spirited precautions of this sort are advisable, not only to avoid colds themselves, which are disagreeable and dangerous enough, but because mild infections of this sort are far the commonest single means of making a breach in our body-ramparts through which more serious diseases like consumption, pneumonia, and rheumatism may force an entry.
Colds do not ”run into” consumption or pneumonia, but they bear much the same relation to them that good intentions are said to do to the infernal regions. They release the lid of a perfect Pandora's box of distempers--tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheumatism, bronchitis, Bright's disease, neuritis, endocarditis. A cold is no longer a joke. A generation ago a prominent physician was asked by an anxious mother, ”Doctor, how would you treat a cold?”
”With contempt, madam,” replied the great man.
That day is past, and has lasted too long. Intelligently regarded and handled, they are the least harmful of diseases; neglected, one of the most dangerous, because there are such legions of them. To sum up, if you wish to revel in colds, all that is necessary is to observe the following few and simple rules:--
Keep your windows shut.
Avoid drafts as if they were a pestilence.
Take no exercise between meals.
Bathe seldom, and in warm water.
Wear heavy flannels, chest-protectors, abdominal bandages, and electric insoles.
Have no heat in your bedroom.
Never let anything keep you away from church, the theatre, or parties, in winter.
Never go out-of-doors when it's windy, or rainy, or wet underfoot, or cold, or hot, or looks as if it was going to be any of these.
Be just as intimate and affectionate as possible with every one you know who has a cold. Don't neglect them on any account.
CHAPTER V
ADENOIDS, OR MOUTH-BREATHING: THEIR CAUSE AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES