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13
enfeebling nervism, it quickly extinguishes a flickering
life. But its influence must also be felt, though
not perhaps immediately, in the processes of growth
and nutrition; for a tissue defectively formed, with
errors of function as well as of structure, must, ere
long, become the seat of disease, and must easily
yield to the action of morbific agents. And then
again it is unfortunate that seasons of great cold are
also seasons of extreme want: it is not, therefore,
to be wondered at, that with the stamina of the
body reduced and the vital powers weakened, the
mortality should be largely increased. At such
times the struggle for existence is intense, and
every day's defective nutrition and loss of power
tell upon the general strength, until the starved
and numbed body wastes away like a burning
lamp. Those whose feeble powers and exhausted
tissues are already weakened by disease or want,
and those whose vital functions have hardly yet
become developed, or are worn out by age and
decay, are the first to succumb. When, therefore,
the thermometer sinks to a few degrees below
its usual range, the mortality of the young and
old and ailing is excessive. At those times the
deaths from pneumonia and bronchitis, as well
as from brain and heart diseases, add fearfully to
the death rate. It has happened thus in the course
of the last year. In the month of October of 1859,
for example, when the temperature fell to nearly