Perform an action with multiple variables

Hi, all! I have a lot of variables (over 2000 and counting), and I need to perform the same action on all of them. As of now, each variable is a Cx5 matrix where C is a very large number. I simply want the second column in each matrix. I realize that you can access the second column through

A(:,2)

but I am not sure how to do this for multiple variables. Each variable is similarly named; in my specific scenario, I have named each blg_x where x is the identifying number for the variable and the only aspect that will change (e.g. blg_0001, blg_1970). I have played around with loops that try to change variable names in them, but nothing seems to work. I was thinking that perhaps MATLAB has some way to perform an action on variables starting with certain letters (in my case 'blg') that I am not aware of, or some way to step through variable names like in a for or while loop. Some help would be appreciated!

[John D'Errico]

The short answer is: don't do it.

Longer: D o n ' t d o i t.

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/304528-tutorial-why-variables-should-not-be-named-dynamically-eval

http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/6200-tutorial-how-to-ask-a-question-on-answers-and-get-a-fast-answer

[Kylie Hansen]

Even if it is frustrating, forced learning is the ultimately best route. Thank you for sharing. You now have one less beginner using cell() instead of eval(). EDIT: After spending a bit more time with this, I've learned a lot more than I expected. Just thought I'd come back to this post to say thank you so much.