CHAPTER VIII.
AIR BATHS.
In the cure of diseases by refrigeration, cold air is the readiest substitute for cold water. In the higher latitudes Nature supplies the remedy free of cost for six months of each year, and intermittently hundreds of times even in midsummer and at the threshold of the tropics, for the reduction of temperature in the early morning hours generally suffices to restore the functional vigor of the jaded organism.
The remedial effect of cold air equals that of cold water; air-cures, indeed, offer the advantage of superior facility of application for the cure of respiratory disorders. Expurgative currents of cold air can be made to reach the tissue of the lungs, and the significance of that circumstance is commensurate with the prevalence of a delusion more mischievous than the drug-superstition, viz.: the current theories concerning the cause of catarrh and consumption.
"Consumption," says an advocate of medical reform, "is a house-disease, and the plan of con-
