POPULAR ERRORS : FROSTBITE.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR, —A propos of Dr. V. Stefansson's article No. V. on " Popular Errors : That Frostbite is Cured by Snow," it is interesting to note what Francis Bacon had to say on the subject. In his Natural History (Sylva Sylvarum) Experiment No. 788 he remarks : " In the cold countries, when men's noses and ears are mortified and, as it were, gangrened with cold, if they come to a fire they rot off presently. The cause is, for that the few spirits that remain in those parts, are suddenly drawn forth, and so putrefaction is made complete. But snow put upon them helpeth ; for it preserveth those spirits that remain, till they can revive ; and besides, snow hath in it a secret warmth : as the monk proved out of the text : Qui dat ridem sicut lanam, gelu sicut cincris spargit.' Whereby he did infer that snow did warm like wool, and frost did fret like ashes. . . . You must resort to things that are refrigerant, with an inward warmth, and virtue of cherishing."
Bacon evidently had faith in the preserving qualities of snow, as Aubrey relates in his life of Hobbes (1680) that his lordship, with Sir John Wedderburn, the King's Physician, took a coach drive to Highgate to the house of the Earl of Arundel. It was April, 1626, and the chronicler tells that on the way they stopped to stuff a newly-killed fowl with snow, to see how long the bird would be kept from putre- faction. As a result, however, Bacon caught a chill from which he is reported to have died. Baconians will give you another version of his death !—I am, Sir, &c.,
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