ATCHOO!

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 18

ATCHOO!

Views on the Common Cold

The "Manchester Guardian.” in a recent competition, gathered the opinions of its readers on “the common cold.” Here are a few: — “Outside, cold, damp, and fog. Inside a cosy bedroom, shaded lights, comfy eiderdown, fat pillows—and Me, in the throes of a common cold. Throes? Nay, rather Heavenly Embrace! “For three—perhaps four —days I shall lie, undisturbed by household worries; my appetite tempted by the blackest of grapes, my meals daintily served and—oh! bliss—prepared by other hands. "What though my nose be like Niagara and my throat like tho Sahara; surely this be a small price to pay for the days of glorious idleness a Common Cold brings to a Very Common Mother!” * “I can'd say buch a’boud the commud cold, because I have dever had wod, bine always beig a host udcommud kind.” ■ The two following gained prizes:--“An unsatisfying complaint—not sufficiently serious to obtain sympathy, but uncomfortable and inconvenient enough to make the victim feel himself to be a long-suffering martyr. "A cold lowers dignity* severs friends, parts lovers, begets contempt until begotten, lessens the omnipotence of the powerful, quietens the voice of the roaring lion, makes pessimists of optimists and egoists of pessimists; like wealth, is,conferred on the deserving but mainly on the undeserving, and brings out the worst in both sexes—bad temper in man and a red nose in woman.” A VICTIM. The common cold, the common cold Afflicts the young and downs the old: Their noses run, they cough and sneeze. With eyes astream they gasp and wheeze. In churches, theatres, and halls,' From pew and gallery, pit and stalls, Music and voice alike are drowned By coughing blasts of raucous sound. For tortured throat and aching head The only parking-place is bed. A hateful scourge! A public curse!— But chemists want it worse and worse Doctors rejoice, the makers grin Of “hankies,” quinine and aspirin.