It may well be supposed that, in this climate, the principal desideratum
which art is called upon to furnish for the promotion of health, is
warmth, as well in the external air as in the inhabited apartments.
Exposure to a cold atmosphere, _when the body is well clothed_, produces
no bad effect whatever beyond a frostbitten cheek, nose, or finger. As
for any injury to healthy lungs from the breathing of cold air, or from
sudden changes from this into a warm atmosphere, or _vice versa_, it may
with much confidence be asserted that, with due attention to external
clothing, there is nothing in this respect to be apprehended. This
inference, at least, would appear legitimate, from the fact that our
crews, consisting of one hundred and twenty persons, have for four
winters been constantly undergoing, for months together, a change of
from eighty to a hundred degrees of temperature, in the space of time
required for opening two doors (perhaps less than half a minute),
without incurring any pulmonary complaints at all.
In speaking of the external clothing sufficient for health in this
climate, it must be confessed that, in severe exposure, quite a _load_
of woollen clothes, even of the best quality, is insufficient to retain
a comfortable degree of warmth; a strong breeze carrying it off so
rapidly, that the sensation is that of the cold piercing through the
body.
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