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by the various contrivances of modern luxury, the more we become subject to it. We can guard against cold only by rendering ourselves superior to its influence. There is a striking instance of this in the vigorous constitutions of children who go thinly clad in all seasons and weathers.

The coats of the vessels are a kind of network which contains the fluids only when not so pressed as to enlarge the pores of the net, or when the fluids are not so pressed as to break the cohesion of the globules or particles, so as to make them small enough to come through. When the vessels are full, occasioned by a course of full living, they labor in carrying on the circulation; their spring or power of contraction and compressing the fluids they contain, being overstrained, is weakened, the circulation proceeds more slowly, the fluids thicken and become more gluey, both for want of due churning and because less heat is produced in the body. Such a body requires more aid of clothing and fire to preserve its warmth.

If a person in that state of body walks a mile or two, or uses any other exercise that warms him, the fluids are rarefied by the heat, distend the vessels still more, and the thinner parts of the fluids in tender places force out through the pores of the vessels in form of a gluey water, viz. at the eyes, within the nose, and within the lungs. This in moderate exercise.

If the exercise is increased it comes through every pore in the skin, and is called sweat.

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The more volatile parts of this extravasated fluid evaporate, and fly off in the air; the gluey part remains, thickens and hardens more or less, as it becomes more or less dry; in the nose and on the lungs where air is continually coming and going, it soon becomes a mucus, but can hardly grow drier because surrounded with moist parts and supplied with more moisture. What oozes out of the corner of the eye when shut, as in sleep, hardens into what is called a kind of gum, being in fact dry glue.

This in a morning almost sticks the eyelids together.

With such mucous matter the nose is sometimes almost stopped, and must be cleared by strong blowing.

In the wind-pipe and on the lungs it gathers and is impacted, so as sometimes to induce a continual coughing and hawking to discharge it,

If not easily discharged, but remaining long adhering to the lungs, it corrupts and inflames the parts it is in contact with; even behind the ears and between

the parts of the body so constantly in contact, that the perspirable matter, sweat, &c. cannot easily escape from between them; the skin is inflamed by it, and a partial putrefaction begins to take place, they corrupt and ulcerate. The vessels being thus wounded discharge greater and continual quantities. Hence consumptions.

Part of the corrupted matter absorbed again by the vessels and mixed with the blood, occasions hectic fevers.

When the body has sweated, not from a dissolution of fluids, but from the force above mentioned, as the sweat dries off, some clammy substance remains in the pores, which closes many of them, wholly or in part. The subsequent perspiration is hereby lessened.

The perspirable matter consists of parts approaching to putrefaction, and therefore destined by nature to be thrown off, that living bodies might not putrefy, which otherwise, from their warmth and moisture, they would be apt to do.

These corrupting particles, if continually thrown off, the remainder of the body continues uncorrupt, or approaches no nearer to a state of putrefaction. Just as in boiling water, no greater degree of heat than the boiling heat can be acquired, because the particles that grow hotter, as fast as they become so, fly off in vapor. But if the vapor could be retained, water might be made much hotter, perhaps red hot, as oil may, which is not so subject to evaporation. So if the perspirable matter is retained it remixes with blood, and produces first, a slight putrid fever, attending always what we call a cold, and when retained in a great degree, more mischievous putrid diseases.

In hot countries, exercise of body with the heat of the climate create much of this putrid perspirable matter, which ought to be discharged. A check is in those countries very pernicious; putrid malignant violent fevers, and speedy death, the consequence.

Its discharge is also checked another way besides that of closing the pores, viz. by being in an air already full of it, as in close rooms containing great numbers of people, play-houses, ball-rooms, &c.

For air containing a quantity of any kind of vapour, becomes thereby less capable of imbibing more of that vapour, and finally will take no more of it.

If the air will not take it off from the body, it must remain in the body; and the perspiration is as effectually stopped, and the perspirable matter as certainly retained as if the pores were all stopped,

VOL. III,

3 G

A lock of wet wool contained in a nutmeg grater, may dry, parting with its moisture through the holes of the grater. But if you stop all those holes with wax it will never dry. Nor if exposed to the open air will it dry when the air is as moist as itself. On the contrary if already dry, and exposed to moist air, it would acquire moisture.

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Thus people in rooms heated by a multitude of people, find their own bodies heated, thence the quantity of perspirable matter is increased that should be discharged, but the air not being changed grows so full of the same matter, that it will receive no more. So the body must retain it. The consequence is, that next day, perhaps sooner, a slight putrid fever comes on with all the marks of what we call a cold, and the disorder is supposed to be got by coming out of a warm room, whereas it was really taken while in that room.

Putrid ferments beget their like. Small pox.-Wet rotten paper, containing corrupt glue. The cold fever communicable by the breath to others, &c. Urine retained, occasions sneezing, &c.

Coughing and spitting continually, marks of intemperance.
People eat much more than is necessary.

Proportionable nourishment and strength is not drawn from great eating.
The succeeding meals force the preceding through half-undigested.

Small meals continue longer in the body, and are more thoroughly digested. The vessels being roomy can bear and receive without hurt an accidental

excess.

They can concrete more easily.

There is less quantity of corrupting particles produced.

Putrid fish very bad.

Black hole in the Indies.

Letter from MR. W. SMALL TO DR. FRANKLIN.

DEAR SIR, Birmingham, 10th August, 1771. The reason of your having no sooner received the quotation from Celsus, is, that I wished to employ my very first leisure in looking into several other ancient books for passages to the same purpose and to send you all together. But Mr. Keir having told me of your desire to see that immediately, you have it almost alone.

I

In the article DE TABE in his third book, treating of the cure he says "cavendæ distillationes, ne, si quid cura levarit, exasperent; et ob id, vitanda cruditas, simulque et sol, et frigus." Here indigestion seems to be reckoned the principal cause. If you have not attended to that particular before, you may be surprised to find sunshine among the causes of colds, but such is the doctrine of all the ancients. A passage about the instruments of cure in coughs may perhaps amuse you, “Utilis etiam in omni tussi est peregrinatio, navigatio longa, loca maritima, natationes.":

From several things in Xenophon, and in Plato, the prevailing opinion in their time seems to have been, that what we now commonly call colds and catarrhs, arose almost solely from excess and indolence. On this account Xenophon says, that in Persia in the days of Cyrus, to spit or to blow a nose was infamous. Plato often commends simple spare diet, but in one place he says it prevents all catarrhs. Whether he means precisely what we call catarrhs, however, in that passage, may be doubted.

I do not recollect any absolutely express testimony in your favor from Hippocrates. Mucus (of the nose) and saliva he judges to be signs of repletion, and he maintains that persons who drink and eat sparingly are free from diseases occasioned by moisture. Abundance may be found in Galen to your purpose. A modern author, who ought to have understood this subject, for he has written so great a book about catarrhs' that you had better have twenty colds than read it, is of your opinion. "Illa, illa, inquam, cibi potusque abundantia citat catarrhos. Eosdem abigunt frugalitas et labor. Ut ex luxu et otiò nascuntur catarrhi, ita horum medicina est in sobrietate, in continentia, in exercitationibus corporis, in mentis tranquillitate. Quotusquisque vero hæc pre cepta, has leges vivendi custodit? Homo frugi est rara avis, &c. Hinc nemo mortalium fere est sine catarrhis." 4

1

"Great caution should be observed, when relief is once obtained, lest Catarrhs are made worse; indigestion also, as well as exposure to the sun, and cold air, ought to be avoided."

2 "In all coughs it is found beneficial to take long journeys and voyages, to reside on the seacoast, and to use sea-baths."

3 This book upon the Catarrh is probably that of Schneiderus, consisting of four volumes 4to. ✦ “Eating and drinking too much, is sufficient of itself, I say, to produce Catarrhs. Temperance and active pursuits on the contrary drive them away. As Catarrhs are produced by luxury and indolence, so the remedy for these is to observe sobriety, continence, exercise of body and tranquillity of mind. How few observe these precepts? Temperance indeed is very rare. Hence very few escape Catarrhs."

Mr. Boulton will soon present you with one of the boxes with invisible hinges. He has astonished our rural philosophers exceedingly by calming the waves à la Franklin.'

I am trying some experiments in relation to the improvement of telescopes; should they answer you shall hear of them.

I beg you will make my most respectful compliments to the fellow travellers who were with you here, and believe me to be with the highest regard, dear Sir, your much obliged and most obedient servant, W. SMALL.

ON THE CAUSES OF COLDS.

March 10, 1773.

I shall not attempt to explain why damp clothes occasion colds, rather than wet ones, because I doubt the fact; I imagine that neither the one nor the other contribute to this effect, and that the causes of colds are totally independent of wet and even of cold. I propose writing a short paper on this subject, the first moment of leisure I have at my disposal. In the mean time I can only say, that having some suspicions that the common notion, which attributes to cold the property of stopping the pores and obstructing perspiration, was ill founded. I engaged a young physician, who is making some experiments with Sanctorius's balance, to estimate the different proportions of his perspiration, when remaining one hour quite naked, and another warmly clothed. He pursued the experiment in this alternate manner for eight hours successively, and found his perspiration almost double during those hours in which he was naked. B. FRANKLIN.

May 4, 1773.

The young physician whom I mentioned is dead, and all the notes which he had left of his curious experiments are by some accident lost between our friends Sir John Pringle and Dr. Huck (Saunders); but these gentlemen, if the papers

See WRITINGS, Part IV.

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