SUNSTROKE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9281, 5 December 1895, Page 6

SUNSTROKE.

The Hospital.

The recent wave of sultry weather, attended, as it has been, by a considerable number of cases of so-called sunstroke, has drawn attention afresh to the injurious effeotß of exposure to high temperatures. These take three mairi forms, only one of which, can be correctly described as sunstroke. -A large number of people, especially those who are elderly and whose hearts ai-e feeble, suffer simply from the exhaustion due to the excessive heat. This syncopal form may. end rapidly in. death, but usually simple measures, such as removal to a cool place, frictions to tlie body, and cold to the head will lead to restoration. True sunstroke, the direct effect of heat upon the nervous centres, comes on usually while exertion is being made, as in marching, under a blazing sun, especially when the air is hot and the clothing is inappropriate. In the occasional bursts of hot weather which we have in England, people should, of course, avoid exertion, especially in the sun's rays; but care about clothing in the day and the ah* of bedrooms in tlie night are matters of, perhaps, even greater importance. Besides the few who suffer from sunstroke a vast number suffer from heat, partly because they are swathed in tightly-fitting clothes, partly because they sleep in stifling bedrooms _»«_"" with the 'hot air of the day, instead of the cool breezes of the night.