MANUFACTURING CHILBLAINS.
At the period of my life to which we have at length arrived, I was for
four or five months of every year a school teacher. This was, in no
trifling degree, an educational process; for is it not well known that,
"Teaching we learn, and giving we retain?"
It was at least an education in the great school of human nature.
Every morning of one of these winter sessions of school keeping, Lydia
Maynard, eight years of age, after walking about a mile, frequently in
deep snow, and combating the cold northwest winds of one of the southern
Green Mountain ranges, would come into the schoolroom with her feet
almost frozen, and take her seat close to the stove, so as to warm them
and be ready for school as quickly as possible. Here she would sit, if
permitted to do so, till the bell rang for school.
It was not long before I learned that she was a great sufferer from
chilblains. Whether she inherited a tendency to this troublesome and
painful disease, which was awakened and aggravated by sudden changes of
temperature, or whether the latter were the original cause of the
disease, I never knew with certainty. But I was struck with the fact
that sudden warming was followed by such lasting and terrible
consequences.
And herein is one reason why I have opposed, from that day to this, the
custom or habit, so exceedingly prevalent, of rushing to the fire when
we are very cold, and warming ourselves as quickly as possible. I have
reasoned; I have commanded; and in some few instances I have ridiculed.
Every one knows it is hazardous to bring the ears or fingers or toes,
or any other parts of the body, suddenly to the fire when really
frozen,--that is, when the temperature is lowered down in the part to
32 deg.; and yet, if it is only down to 33 deg., and the part not quite
frozen, almost every one, young and old, will venture to the fire. Can
there be such a difference in the effects when there is only a difference
of one degree in temperature? No reflecting person will for one moment
believe it. The trouble is we do not think about it.
Sudden changes from heat to cold are little more favorable than when the
change is in the other direction. Indeed, it often happens that children
at school are subjected to both these causes. Thus, in the case of
Lydia, suppose that after roasting herself a long time at the stove, she
had gone to her seat and placed her feet directly over crevices in the
floor, through which the cold wind found its way at almost freezing
temperature. Would not this have greatly added to the severity of the
disease?
There are, it is true, other reasons against sudden changes of
temperature, particularly the change from cold to heat, besides the fact
that they tend to produce chilblains; but I cannot do more just now than
barely advert to them. The eyes are apt to be injured; it renders us
more liable than otherwise we should be to take cold. Occasionally it
brings on faintness and convulsions, and still more rarely, sudden
death. I will only add now, that sudden warming after suffering from
extreme cold, whether we perceive it or not at the time, is very apt to
produce deep and lasting injury to the brain and nervous system.
But my main object in relating the story is answered if I have succeeded
in clearly pointing out to the reader one of the avenues through which
light found its way to my benighted intellect, and led me to reflection
on the whole subject of health and disease. Here was obviously one cause
of a frequent but most painful complaint. It was natural, perfectly
natural, that by this time I should begin to inquire. Have all diseases,
then, their exciting causes? Many certainly have; and if many, perhaps
all. At least, how do we know but it may be so? And then again, if the
causes of chilblains are within our control, and this troublesome
disease might be prevented, or its severity mitigated if no more, why
may it not be so with all other diseases?
To revert for a moment to the case of Lydia Maynard. Though I was the
cause, in a certain sense, of her suffering, yet it was a sin of
ignorance. But it taught me much wisdom. It made me cautious ever
afterward. I do not doubt but I have been a means of preventing a very
considerable amount of suffering in this form, since that time, by
pointing out the road that leads to it.
Prevention is better than cure, was early my motto, and is so still. And
from the day in which I began to open my eyes on the world around me,
and to reason from effects up to their causes, I have been more and more
confirmed in the belief that mankind as a race are to be the artificers
of their own happiness or misery. All facts point in this direction,
some of them with great certainty. And facts, everywhere and always, are
stubborn things.