A series of American clinical lectures. Vol. 1, no. 6, Otitis / by C.R. Agnew.

  • Agnew, Cornelius Rea, 1830-1888.
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A series of American clinical lectures. Vol. 1, no. 6, Otitis / by C.R. Agnew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    need not repeat the history of the case. It will serve our present purpose to accept that diagnosis as the basis of our remarks. It is the so-called taking cold which gives us many of the cases of acute or recurring middle ear disease. If this is so. it becomes an urgent question how may this tendency to catch cold be lessened or pre¬ vented. There is an additional pertinency in the inquiry to-day coming from the fact that the thermometer is ten or twelve degrees below zero, and catarrhal affections of the throat, ears, and chest are very prevalent. When we catch cold, or get a more or less acute catarrh, it is generally traceable to a sudden or unexpected fall in the temperature of the air, or to exposure of a limited por¬ tion of the body to moisture, or to the cooling effect of air in mo¬ tion, or to the depressing influences of overheated or impure air in a dormitory or public assembly room. As we often cannot have the best conditions of ventilation and heating, how may we prepare the body, not only to withstand the inevitable exposures, but to turn even a draught into a pleasurable source of health. Living, as we ordinarily do, without sufficient out-of-door active exercise, the surface of our body becomes morbidly sensitive and susceptible to all those influences which produce catarrh. Hence you shall find among people the greatest dread of a draught. The average man, in a public vehicle or assembly, would rather incur the risk of typhoid fever than endure a draught. And there always is one or more enemies of his race at every discovered inlet of fresh air in an assembly room, ready, even to break up a public meeting in an uproar if the influx of the needed air is not regulated by his indi¬ vidual sensibility. Air in motion is evidently regarded by too many as one of the most morbific influences that a man at rest can meet. Hence the great obstacle in the way of ventilating public vehicles and buildings. Very few persons have been so educated as to endure, when at rest, air in motion, much less to derive pleasure and health from it. Now, I know from personal experi¬ ence, and many years of close observation and practice, that it is