Show why Is cold weather healthful the hygienic virtues of cold climate have been but partly appreciated and very little investigated scientifically the bracing or stimulating effect of cold in the weather or the bath has been abundantly recognized and even to and injurious excesses but a more essential aspect of the subject comes into view with the unfolding unfold unfolding 1 in secrets of microbial and malarial mala agencies while the germicidal or fe perhaps chaps germ paralyzing power of frost has always been palpable and notorious in yellow fever for instance and other diseases its beneficent interference with slower a agencies cies of the same kind I 1 that urgencies undermine amie health by merely depressing vital vitally tty agencies quite distinct as we are about to show from the relaxing effect of thermal changes as commonly recognized demands reexamination examination re in the light of modern biology i what is the meaning of an actual case like this A sedentary indoor occupation apartment at an extraordinary elevation moderately warmed and well ventilated at all hours bodily heat kept uniform in all weathers by attention to clothing in short nothing owed to changes of temperature in the personal so nal environment but whenever the outside temperature has been below the freezing point digestion has been about twice as efficient gs as in the clearest of the prevailing mild weather of the present winter without going into the open air in either elther case it seems evident from this that freezing suppresses something that is inimical to health and which revives or is as soon as the temperature rises Is not this something identical or homogeneous ogene ous with the miasma of intermittent fevers which is now classed am among ng specific germs if so is there not a wide range of virulence in these germs from the mild and transient vitiating influence above described to the most dangerous in fevers dependent generally as we know on the climate with heat as a peculiarly essential factor and does not this indicate the chief hygienic advantage of solid northern winters not only obly does frost destroy the microbes mic robes or paralyze their propagation but the more con concentrated concentta centra a oxygen of the dense cold air has also an evident agency in their su suppression p pres slon according to the discovery of oxygen culture as a means of incapacitating them for resistance to the germ destroying ying power now found to be in the blood otherwise when acclimated as it were to scant oxygen they are able to survive and propagate within the system were they work with varied degrees of activity in the following ways mentioned in a late paper by dr E W mcguire before the virginia medical society 1 As cell food and oxygen consumers 2 As obstruct zionists interfering with the action of excreting organs 3 by leaving poisonous excretions 4 by tissue disorganization wherefrom wherefrom efrom ato maines result in consonance with the experience above cited of indigestion and acidity in soft weather baginsky in in a paper before the berlin medical society referring to indigestion of infants states that the bacterium of the lactic fermentation causes the production of acetic acid and acetone as well as lactic acid the neutral lactates are changed to butyric acid starch is not changed to sugar nor casein or albumin decomposed he proposes to name this bacterium the acetic bacterium sanitary era |