BE KIND TO COLDS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3333, 9 August 1926, Page 8

BE KIND TO COLDS.

Bv a Doctor.

Nothing kills a cold so quickly as kindness. Immediately the first symptom shows itself go to bed and stay there for three days between two pairs of blankets. This is the best cure in winter or in summer. The experience of a hundred centuries has taught ns that when the cold germs attack ns nothing will remove them except the rest needed by the body cells in order to manufacture antitoxin, and thus overwhelm them. When yon are suffering from a cold everybody has a certain cure for you. They are all diffei cut , but the one iurgedient each contains is time, and this is the most forceful remedy m all the prescriptions. Extra warmth is the other necessary factor. A moderate rise of temperature helps the body in its light against invading germs. A few degrees of lever may kill them entirely. Fever, .n fact, in all sorts of affections, is regarded to-day as a weapon forged by the body for use against germs. _so that a. moderate fever in the beginning of aji infection is rather a favorable sign. In addition to the three days’ “homemade.” cure of rest and warmth, there are. ol course, innumerable soothing and relieving remedies, which come into the therapeutic class as doadoners of discomfort, or, technically, narcotics. Not one of them could mildly inconvenience a cold germ, lint they olden add greatly to the comfort of the patient while he"is rcslfuily manfaetnring his own anti-toxin. And if a sufficiently mild drug is chosen -preferably one of the coal tars, phenacetin. acelanilid, or aspirin—so as to do as little harm as possible to the body cells, the relief obtained distinctly assists (he natural cure. (( is when the cold has broken that the danger is the greatest.' Pneumonia. bronchitis, rheumatism, appendicitis. and tuberculosis are sinister followers of colds and sure throats. Then* germs have been sprayed into the air round us whenever a victim or a carrier coughs or sneezes'. \\ e have breathed them into our noses, carried them on soiled fingers <o our months. And hero they have remained, waiting until something definite comes along that will lower "our power of resistance, alien they will promply break' into the blood and attack the entire system. And that something definite is usually a common cold. The guard against these is practically Ihe same as that against colds themselves —another dose out of the same buttle. Host —not necessarily In bed lor at least llirce days after the cold is broken up, with plenty »(' fresh air ami sunshine and balanced feeding. (I is worth sacrificing a week if you possibly can —thoroughly to cure your cold, rat her than run ihe risk of In*in"- six weeks or more lay pneumonia or rheumatism.