Sea-air and sea-bathing : their influence on health : a practical guide for the use of visitors at the sea-side / by Charles Parsons.

  • Parsons, Charles
Date:
1877
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sea-air and sea-bathing : their influence on health : a practical guide for the use of visitors at the sea-side / by Charles Parsons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    special virtue dependent n]Don lowness of temperature alone. The immediate action of cold bathing upon the system is very nearly identical, whether the medium employed be salt water or fresh; its remote effects, however, are varied somewhat by the difference in density, composition, and other modifying circumstances to be considered presently. When a healthy person is suddenly immersed in cold water, he experiences a series of sensa- tions, familiar enough to all who have practised cold bathing, which follow each other in rapid succession. He is first of all conscious of a shock which seems to penetrate the whole sys- tem, accompanied by a general sensation of cold and shivering: the skin becomes pale and con- tracted, rendering the hair-bulbs prominent, and producing that peculiar appearance of the surface, which is commonly called goose-skin, from its resemblance to that of a newly-plucked goose : the circulation is accelerated, and the pulse becomes small and frequent; the respira- tion at first hurried and gasping, grows deep and laborious, with a feeling of 023pression or constriction of the chest, and of fulness and weio'ht in the head. o These phenomena are but of momentary duration, however, and rapidly yield to a general sensation of warmth, which by degrees pervades
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