INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 153, 7 May 1879, Page 2

INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER

The Lancet admits that the public arc not altogether wrong in attributing lowness of spirits to the weather. The'' tolerably well section of the community" report themselves to be suffering from unwonted depression and uneasiness, accompanied with loss of appetite and inability to sleep; and the explanation our medical authority finds in the relations which subsist between such mental depression as constitutes melancholia and the defective discharge of its functions by the skin. The connection between cause and effect may not be clearly made out, and the part which the nerve-centres play in the production of the result may be obscure; but the broad fact remains. When the skin does not act frefcly, when its functions arc seriously impeded or arrested, melancholy broods over the mind, just as in the case of a subject of melancholia, when it exists as a formulated disease, the skin becomes dense and inactive. It is not a random conjecture, therefore, that the intense and prolonged cold and damp work their depressing influences mainly through the skin. This (the Lancet adds) is a trite remark, but it is one that may with advantage be made just now, because, in the interests of health-preservation, especial pains need to he taken to securo the freest possible action of the great surface system of excretory glands and the transuding apparatus generally, Warmer clothing especially at night, frequent ablutions, with sufficient friction, and the promotion of skin activity by every legitimate form of exeicise, are obvious measures of health which everybody ought to understand and all should practise.