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Elements of hygiene for schools and colleges
Elements of hygiene for schools and colleges Author:John Campbell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: flannel, because it conducts heat badly. Young children and old persons resist cold much worse than is commonly believed. 25. A soft brush is best for the hai... more »r, for it is bruised and broken by a hard one. 26. Hats should be low, soft, light, broad in the leaf, and ventilated. CHAPTER VIII. A COLD : ITS CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND PREVENTION. In a damp and changeable climate no one needs to be told what are the symptoms of a cold in the head or catarrh. This affection consists of an irritation or inflammation of the mucous membrane lining the commencement of the air-passages. The membrane, when recently attacked, becomes swollen and congested, and a stoppage of its secretion occurs ; but at a later stage the mucous secretion is poured out in excessive quantity causing the well-known running from the nose. The air-passages begin in the nostrils and mouth, are prolonged backwards into the throat, pass down the windpipe and its two branches, the right and left bronchus, and thence into the finest air-tubes of the lung. The mucous membrane of the upper part of the respiratory tract is particularly susceptible to inflammation from its exposure to sudden changes of temperature ; still, though this is true, the commonest cause of catarrh is not the direct action of cold on the membrane at the commencement of the air-passages, but a chill of the skin. By the phrase " a cold," we understand more than a mere catarrh. A cold in its wide sense means inflammation of some part or organ of the body brought about by the influence of a low temperature. Cold, when severe or long applied, has a profound lowering action on the nerves of the skin, which exercise, as we have already found, control over the process of nutrition.Now it is remarkable that the part on which the cold has dire...« less