all bronchial affections are induced in this manner, not always nor
necessarily in the acute form, but more frequently by slow degrees, by
repetition and repetition of the evil. Colds are often taken in this
same way, from the exposed mucous surfaces of the nose and throat
being subjected first to a chill, then to heat.

The wave of low temperature affecting a mixed population finds
inevitably a certain number of persons of all ages and conditions on
whom to exert its power. It catches them too often when they least
expect it. An aged man, with sluggish heart, goes to bed and reclines
to sleep in a temperature, say, of 50° or 55°. In his sleep, were it
quite uninfluenced from without, his heart and his breathing would
naturally decline. Gradually, as the night advances, the low wave of
heat steals over the sleeper, and the air he was breathing at 55°
falls and falls to 40°, or it may be to 35° or 30°. What may naturally
follow less than a deeper sleep? Is it not natural that the sleep so
profound shall stop the laboring heart? Certainly. The great narcotic
never travels without fastening on some victims in this wise, removing
them, imperceptibly to themselves, into sleep ending in absolute
death.


SOME SIMPLE RULES.

The study of the physiological influence of the wave of low
temperature, and of its relation to the wave of mortality, suggests a
few rules, simple, and easily remembered.

1. Clothing is the first thing to attend to. To have the body, during
variable weather, such as now obtains, well enveloped from head to