a part where the
excitability is accumulated, will cause an inflammation; to which,
the more you apply heat, the worse you make it.--From these
considerations, we may lay it down as a fact, and experience
supports us in so doing, that you may in general go out of warm into
cold air without much danger; but, that you can never return
suddenly from the cold into the warm air with perfect impunity.

Hence, we may lay down the following rule, which, if strictly
observed, would prevent the frequent colds we meet with in winter.
_When the whole body, or any part of it, is chilled, bring it to its
natural feeling and warmth by degrees._

But if, for want of observing this necessary caution, a cold, as it
is called, should have seized a person, let us consider what is
proper to be done.

It will, from the preceding reasoning, appear very improper to make
the room where you sit warmer than usual, to increase the quantity
of bed-clothes, to wrap yourself up in flannel, or particularly to
drink a large quantity of barley-water, gruel, or tea, almost
boiling hot, by way of diluting, as it is called, and forcing a
perspiration; this will infallibly make the disorder worse, in the
same manner as confining inoculated persons in warm rooms would make
their small-pox more violent.

Perhaps there would be scarcely such a thing as a bad cold, if
people, when they found it coming on, were to keep cool, and avoid
wine and strong liquors, and confine themselves for a short time to
a simple diet of vegetable food, drinking only toast and water.
Instances are by no means uncommon, where a heat of the nostrils,
difficulty of breathing, a short, tickling cough, and other
symptoms, threatening a violent cold, have gone off entirely in
consequence of this plan being pursued.

Colds would be much less frequent, were we to take more pains to
accommodate our dress to the season: if we were warmly clothed in
cold weather, our excitability would not be accumulated by the
action of the cold. If a greater proportion of females fall victims
to this disease, is it not because, losing sight, more than men, of
its primary purpose, they regulate their dress solely by fantastic
ideas of elegance? If happily, as is observed by Dr. Beddoes, our
regret should recall the age of chivalry, to break the spell of
fashion would be an atchievement worthy the most gallant of our
future knights. Common sense has always failed in the adventure; and
our ladies, ala