THE EFFECTS OF INTENSE COLD UPON THE MIND,

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIX, Issue 98, 27 April 1895, Page 4

THE EFFECTS OF INTENSE COLD UPON THE MIND,

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Extreme 'co]d, as is well known, exerts a benumbing influence upon the mental faculties. Almost everyone who has been exposed, for a longer or a shorter period, to a very low temperature has noted a diminution in will power, {and often a temporary weakening of the memory. Perhaps the largest scale upon which this action has ever been studied was during the retreat of the French from Moscow. Ihe troops suffered extremely from hunger, fatigue, and cold — from the latter perhapß most ol all. A German physician who acebmpanied a detachment of his countrymen has left an interesting account of their trials during this retreat. From an abstract of this paper by Dr Eose, iu the Neiu Yorker Medicinische JUenatschrift, we find that of the earliest symptoms referable to the cold was a loss of memory. This was noted in the [strong as well as those who wero already suffering from the effects of the hardships to which they bad been exposed. With the first appearance of a moderately low temperature (about 5 deg. above zoro Fahrenheit), many of the soldiers were found to have forgotten the names of the most ordinary things about them as well as those of the articles of food, . for the want of which thoy were .perishing. Many forgot their own names and those of their comrades. Others showed more pronounced symptoms, of mental disturbance, and not $IKff£.]www iowrabjy insane, the

type of their insanity resembling very closely senile dementia. The cold was probably not alone responsible for these effects, for a zero temperaturo is rather stimulating than paralysing in its action upon the wellfed and the healthy. These men were half starved, poorly clad, worn out with long marching, many already weakened by dysentery and other diseases, and all mentally depressed, as an army in defeat always is. It needed, therefore, no very unusual degree of cold to produce the psychic effects observed under other ciroumstances only as a consequence of expoßure to an extreme low temperature. —Medical Record.