THE COMMON COLD

Evening Star, Issue 20167, 6 May 1929, Page 1

THE COMMON COLD

DIFFERENT OPINIONS A 8 TO CAUSE Once a cold has _ started, stated ‘ The Times ’ in a review of a book on the subject by Dr Leonard Hill and Mr Mark Clement, the modern doctor, can sitll do little more than could his predecessors —that is, “stand by and pat Nature on the hack while she does the work.” It is tor the true nature of colds, the 1 actor-, external and internal, which contribute to their occurrence, and the means whereby we may avoid them, that we look to science for guidance; but until physiological research has succeeded in unravelling tor us much more of the mystery of those cellular interactions that create immunity, pathology is bound to bo superficial and tentative. Into these profundities the book which Dr Hill and Mr Clement have given ns does not enter. Being, presumably, intended lor a non-teehnieal public, it relies lor. the bases of its conclusions on. the. more palpable facts and phenomena which ordinary people are accustomed to contemplate. The conclusions drawn by the authors, however, do not seem always to follow from the evidence. Thus, the fact that, although Nansen’s comrades lay all night in frozen clothes “ shivering with cold, their frozen socks across their breasts,” _ yet that during none of these experiences did they suffer from common colds,” certainly goes to show that in the absence of parasitic organisms exposure to chill cannot alone induce colds; but it by no means justifies Dr Hill’s conclusion that atmospheric conditions have nothing to do with liability to infection. That there is an infective factor as well as one of lowered resistance is to-day generally recognised in lay as well as professional circles. As for the means 'whereby the body’s resisting power may be raised to its highest, this book offers sound advice. But most of us will await further evidence before giving up our conviction that meteorological conditions play in the causation of epidemics of colds and influenza an altogether larger and more significant part than our authors are willing to aliow.