DO NOT MUFFLE!

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5199, 4 November 1927, Page 1

DO NOT MUFFLE!

COLD IS A FRIEND.

DOCTOR’S VIEWS.

Victorian theories regarding the catching of colds were criticised by Dr. Leonard Hill in his presidential address at the annual conference of the Sanitary Inspectors’ Associations, held at Plymouth.

“While colds are ascribed popularly.” said Dr. Hill, “to draughts from an open window, to wet footweal. to cutting the hair in winter, and to say good-bye at an open door aftei coming from a. warm room, a medical officer told me the other day that he had. never seen in his sanatorium any ill-result arise from exposure to cold. “While it has been the custom of the, Victorian Age to fear the cold wind, to muffle up the throat, to put on overcoats, the lessons learnt at, the open-air sanatorium are wholly in the opposite sensei. The man who has been cured by open-air treatment at a sanatorium rejoices in the wind and loves to feel it sweep through his clothing. It incites him to take vigorous exercise. He puts on no hat, no overcoat, or muffler. He has no fear of going out into the nightair or adequately clad, riding in an open motor car at any season of the year. He sleeps by an open window. All fear of feeling cold has gone from him. He regards cold as his friend, and the energiser of bodily health, vigour, and appetite.

“Balloonists, flying men, Alpine climbers street-corner men, fishermen, shepherds, bakers going from hot oven to cold streets, doctors going from warm beds to speak at open windows, or to drive in cars to patients, winter bathers, Russians, who, after a steam bath, roll In tjhe snow, are not subject to catarrn or rheumatism through exposure to cold. The soldiers at the front in the Great War, exposed in t,he trenches', and the sailors exposed ifi the North Sea to the severest winter conditions, were singularly free from catarrhal complaints and pneumonia. They suffered from such when returning home on leave and in crowded depots. A man engaged in -business severely suffered each winter from chilblains, and was fearful of the effect of exposure when called up to serve: in the war. At the front he had no chilblains ,at all.

“The view has been commonly held that pneumonia results from exposure to cold, and the low-necked blouses of women when first introduced, when called ‘pneumonia blouses.’ There is little or no evidence in favour of this view.” Illness, continued Dr. Hill, was costing the country £100,000,000' in loss of wages alone. That might be saved by educating the individual in hygiene. The, working power would be increased, so that the national income might be doubled, or even trebled.

The whole attitude of both tlib public arid the medical profession needed changing. At present the medical profession was paid for looking after ill people. The profession ought to be paid, in the first place, for the supervision of those not yet ill—for the prevention of disease by the education of the individual in personal hygiene. , The doctor should not wait for the sickness to come to him, but should go round the factory daily, picking out the ailing, and sending the tired away for a holiday before they reached the breaking point.