Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 31.djvu/700

682 stimulating drink, we must not forget that the taking of liquor causes the blood to rush to the brain, and that the cold, too, drives the blood from the skin to the inner organs, and particularly to the brain. Strong drink must, therefore, favor the congestion of the brain which is caused by cold.

Good nourishment, an energetic character, and a sound heart, are the best preventives against the danger of perishing by cold. Close fitting garments, which impede the circulation of the blood, and exposure in damp, windy weather should, if possible, be carefully avoided.

Many persons have the idea that life is endangered only, if the patient be brought too suddenly from the cold into a warm place. They believe that, if one proceed very carefully and slowly with the warming, the cold can never produce a lasting injury to the system. There is certainly no doubt that sudden warming is very dangerous, and that a great deal depends upon the right treatment of the frozen limb. Experience shows that, while some people have frozen joints treated in such a manner that they are completely restored, others are less fortunate, and suffer frequently in after-years. But one must admit that intense cold alone, without being followed by sudden warming, which proves so disastrous, suffices to cause severe suffering. In this respect, a great deal depends on the nature of the person. If very sudden transitions from heat to cold and from cold to heat be avoided, a healthy person can withstand intense cold without serious consequences, especially if he be mentally active, energetic, and muscular, and has a sound heart—that is, if his pulse be regular and strong. A robust person can withstand the tenrperature at which alcohol and mercury freeze. Members of north-pole expeditions have experienced temperatures of fifty or more degrees below zero without suffering harm.

However, it happens not unfrequently that even moderately cold weather, when the thermometer is but a few degrees below the freezing-point, causes serious ills, and sometimes even fatal results. This is apt to happen to persons who are anaemic, poorly fed, effeminate, or mentally depressed. Old men, children, anæmic girls, drunkards, and people with a weak heart, are all liable to be frost-bitten, and easily freeze to death if they succumb to sleep while exposed to intense cold. They fall into a sort of stupor, sit down to rest, soon fall asleep, and in most instances never awake. For a long time they remain in a condition bordering on death; they breathe a little, and the heart makes feeble attempts to maintain the circulation of the blood.

This beating of the heart is the cause of the long duration of this death-like trance. The heart exerts a slight pressure on the lungs, and causes thereby a sort of artificial breathing, which, however, is so slight that laymen and even physicians often erroneously consider people who are merely frozen to be dead.

When Napoleon I had returned to France from Russia, he felt