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CHAP, IV.] is stopped, and its work of getting rid of waste matters from the blood is thrown upon the other excretory organs, the lungs and the kidneys; these become overworked, and disease results. Besides this, when the blood cannot pass near the surface of the body, it has to go somewhere else, and the consequence is that the internal organs get too great a supply, and are thus rendered very liable to become inflamed.

Thus many diseases are directly occasioned by cold; but, even apart from these, general debility may be induced by it, owing to insufficient nutrition, for animal heat is derived from part of the food consumed, and consequently, if much heat is abstracted from the body by a low external temperature, much of the food matter has to go to supply heat instead of forming tissue, and the frame is practically starved, unless a corresponding amount of nutriment is supplied, which is not always possible, especially in those of feeble digestive powers.

The injury done by cold is most apparent in the case of children, who for obvious reasons suffer from it more than adults do.

The first danger a new-born infant has to encounter is from the external cold. It passes from a high and practically unvarying temperature into one much lower and exceedingly changeable. This danger is increased by the fact demonstrated by Milne Edwards, that the power of generating heat is at its minimum in all animals immediately after birth, increasing as the individual developes, and its strength and activity become greater. Moreover,