POPULAR ERRORS: FROSTBITE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
have read with considerable interest Mr. Stefansson's articles under the heading of "Popular Errors," and in most of his assertions I have been disposed to believe he is probably right. At any rate I have had no personal experience to justify me in controverting his statements. In the matter of frost- bite, however, I have had some experience, having spent the best part of seven winters in the North West Territories, where a temperature of 300 to 400 below zero is not uncommon, and I am a little doubtful if, in this matter, he is on quite sure ground. He says, "If you had no instructions on the subject, you would use your common sense. Something is freezing and you do not want it to freeze, so naturally you apply warmth to thaw it out. The most convenient warm thing is your hand, and you would apply that to the frozen cheek . . . . that is what I have always done through ten years of polar exploration."
, This last statement appears to be contradicted by a later one : "During my career as a polar explorer I have never frozen a finger or toe."
In temperatures of 30° or 40° below zero one usually has one's hands protected by.woollen mittens covered with leather ones outside, and when you may get your cheek or nose frozen within ten yards' walking from leaving a house that is heated, as I have done, you do not readily expose your hand to the atmosphere, as, if you do, it is likely to freeze as quickly as other parts. But the act of rubbing snow (apart from its psychological effect) seems to serve the purpose Of restoring the circulation gradually, by friction—surely a very ordinary method of doing so—and the reason for using snow, rather than any other substance, would seem to be that it is the cleanest and most convenient. Another 'point in favour of rubbing snow, in preference to applying heat, is that when a part is actually frozen there is practically no sensation in that part and the application of warmth renders the sudden return of the circulation very painful.—
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