THE RIDDLE OF THE "COLD"

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 129, 3 June 1922, Page 10

THE RIDDLE OF THE "COLD"

GRANDMOTHERS AND" BACTERIO-

LOGISTS.

' The Medical Correspondent of the London Times,writes: —

Wo have all grown co accustomed' to discounting the advice of our grandmothers in regard to our health that nowadays-'■night-air," and wet feet and cold—those bogeys of .the past—are-pillars in the. temple- of the"1 new Hygiene. "The grandmothers" have been routed by the bacteriologists, who have told us that coughs end colds and pneumonia.' come not by "chills" but by gdrms. Possibly they do, yet that teavos the •.Teat question unanswered: "Why do the germs catch us at one time of the year and not at another?" Why aro colds and coughs and influenza and pneumonia- bo mote prevalent in winter'than in summer? In short, which cornea first,1 the chill or the germ? . . last winter the chill seemed to arrive before-the germ. For it was not till, the , annual drop in temperature took place/ that the death-rato began to rise above irs normal 12 per'looo.' . ; ' . . .' The causes of the rise were bronchitis, influenza, broncho-pneumonia, and other '■'winter" illnesses. Naturally," when tho death-rate goes-up' it me'ane that a very large number of people are afflicted. Because only a few of us die of colds.: This, is must be confessed,, looks very like a victory for "the. grandmothers. ' Of course, taking the side of the bacteriologist, wo may say' that if there had been no germa the' cold would have mattered. But "the grandmothers" will be entitled to answer that if' there had been no cold the gerai3 -would not have mattered. . ; •■■■• In short, they will be entitled to argue that "night air" and'wet feet apd cold are the traitors whoopen the city's doors and lot tho germs in. There is one argument, .however) left to tlie bacteriologists. Cold drives people indoOre '.beside t>ue another, , and so tlie germs ate more easily pafsed from person to person., Wo have to put against that tho fact that in the trenches and dug-oats of the war, when people lived even together than at home, there were very few colds/But theao were hardy people, well-fed people, very well-clad people. Perhaps tho moral is that neither "the grandmothers" nor the bacteriologists possess tho whole truth. .They are both extremists in their way, and the truth lies somewhere ■ between them. Warm dothes, good food, vigour—and not too muoh "night air," perhaps—are the best defences we possess .against tho germs Ts it vory unorthodox 1o say that "the grandmothers" supplied us with more o£ these weapons than anyone else?1