It is certain, however, that colds may be too much indulged. When a person, for every slight cold, shuts himself up in a warm room, and drinks great quantities of warm liquor, it may occasion such a general relaxation of the solids as will not be easily removed. It will therefore be proper, when the disease will permit, and the weather is mild, to join to the regimen mentioned above gentle exercise; as walking, riding on horseback, or in a carriage, &c. An obstinate cold, which no medicine can remove, will yield to gentle exercise and a proper regimen of the diet. Bathing the feet and legs in warm water has a great tendency to restore the perspiration. But care must be taken that the water be not too warm, otherwise it will do hurt. It should never be much warmer than the blood, and the patient should go immediately to bed after using it. Bathing the feet in warm water, lying in bed, and drinking warm water-gruel, or other weak liquors, will sooner take off a spasm, and restore the perspiration, than all the hot sudorific medicines in the world. This is all that is necessary for removing a common cold; and if this course be taken at the beginning, it will seldom fail. But when the symptoms do not yield to abstinence, warmth, and diluting liquors, there is reason to fear the approach of some other disease, as an inflammation of the breast, an ardent fever, or the like. If the pulse therefore be hard and frequent, the skin hot and dry, and the patient complains of his head or breast, it will be necessary to bleed, and to give the cooling powders recommended in the scarlet fever every three or four hours, till they give a stool. It will likewise be proper to put a blistering-plaster on the back, to give two table-spoonfuls of the saline mixture every two hours, and in short to treat the patient in all respects as for a slight fever. I have often seen this course, when observed at the beginning, remove the complaint in two or three days, when the patient had all the symptoms of an approaching ardent fever, or an inflammation of the breast. The chief secret of preventing colds lies in avoiding, as far as possible, all extremes either of heat or cold, and in taking care, when the body is heated, to let it cool gradually. These and other circumstances relating to this important subject, are so fully treated of under the article _Obstructed Perspiration_, that it is needless here to resume the consideration of them. OF A COMMON COUGH. A cough is generally the effect of a cold, which has either been improperly treated, or entirely neglected. When it proves obstinate, there is always reason to fear the consequences, as this shews a weak state of the lungs, and is often the forerunner of a consumption.