THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 25494, 26 May 1945, Page 10

THE DIARY OF A DOCTOR WHO TELLS

CATCHING COLDS Monday, May 21. " Don't bet too near me," warned Harry Burton this evening. " I've bot an awful cold in me bose. Always bet one this time of the year. Change of season, 1 suppose." "Change of living conditions more like it," 1 replied. " What d'ya mean?" asked Harry. " I'm still living where I've always lived." - " No —I mean that when the first cold days come we shut the windows, put on the heating of whatever sort we have, and collect infections," I replied. Burton said, that, frankly, he wasn't the hardy, fresh-air type, "and liked a bit of comfort.

" I think you can still hove comfort if you leave windows open, so long as the room's warm." ft has been well said that cold isn't the cause of a cold. Colds are extremely infectious, and one person in a closed-up room can infect a new person with everv sneeze. A sneezer with a cold is like a

commando with a germ-filled tommy gun, and should be ducked

from accordingly. Burton wanted to know if there was any way he could ease his condition. jj

" And don't tell me to go to bed," he said, " because we're much too busy at the office."

" You surprise me," I said. " 1 can't think you're busy at all if you think it's all right for you to go back and infect the rest of the staff, thereby probably, lowering your attendance and certainly reducing your staff efficiency." " Oh, that's a bit exaggerated," he said uncomfortably.

" Every fellow general practitioner I know could quote examples," I replied. 1 suggested he could clear his nose liv using one of a number of the various nasal drops or inhalants, should go to bed as soon as he got home, and take a day off. Lozenges would probably ease his throat, and about 10 grains of aspirin (the equivalent of two of the various kinds of tablets) would probably make him less " headachy." • One of the sanest things on the common cold has been written as follows: —" Taking too little exercise, going straight out of hot, ill-ventilated rooms into cold air, wearing too much thick underclothing and wrapping up too much, eating food deficient in vitamins and mineral salts, habitual indulgence •in worry and depressing moods—all of these abuses will reduce one to a condition in which colds may become a constant recurrence." Before Burton went I reminded him not to grasp his nasal organ fiercely and blow tempestuously. " Blow one nostril at a time," I suggested, " compressing the other. This helps to avoid the cold getting up into the ears."

Tuesday, May 22. ' Some years ago, when you had the earache, they told you to put a sock in it—or rather on it.

It wasn't such bad immediate t home treatment, since they filled the sock with hot salt.

Or they would pour heated oil into the affected ear. The heat was comforting, if hardly curative. " These days," I explained to Mrs Milton when she brought her seven-year-old Jimmy, suffering from the complaint this morning, " we regard earache as a symptom and then try to diagnose the condition causing it." In Jimmy's case it turned out to be tonsils and adenoids, whose ultimate removal I strongly advised. The commonest other causes of earache in children are probably measles, scarlet fever, and bad colds. In fliers, earache on descent from height is becoming well known, the whole condition forming a new clinical entitycalled barotrauma.

Wednesday, May 23. ' <•l heard the other day that ordinary salt was a good thing to clean teeth with," said Mrs Harvey, mother of a large family. "Is that true? " " Yes," I said. " It's not really anything new, and has been used for generations." " I don't know that I'd like' the taste of it," she said, " or, more to the point, I don't think the kiddies would like it."

; " That's the personal element," I replied. " You could probably get used to it in most cases : I'd say. One advantage, of course, is that it's plentiful and cheap."

Thursday, May 24. " Oh, I'm not so well this year," said old George Henry when I asked him about his chronic bronchitis this morning. " It's the weather, you know." " The weather," I asked. "It hasn't been too bad this week."

" Oh, I don't just mean this week," said George. "We haven't had what you might call real weather for a long time. The summers seem shorter, and the winters start too early. We don't get the lovely long hot days we used to get in summer. And the winter's colder somehow."

Actually, it's not the weather, but George's reaction to it which is changing.

It's common the world over for the middle-age and elderly to think the weather isn't what it used to be. In the Northern Hemisphere, they dream of a wjiite Christmas, and think it always used to happen that way. A professor of geography in England recently pointed out that,' as an historical fact, in the past 104 years snow has fallen on Christmas Day only 12 time's. There is a relationship between weather and one or two conditions like " rheumatics."

Warm, sunny days seem to give, relief to the chronic bronchitis, and, therefore, a change away from a cold, damp atmosphere to a warm, dry one in winter not infrequently proves good treatment.

Asthma is another condition .which may improve if the patient moves his living-place, but in this case it is. probably due to the fact that the new situation does not contain the particular proteins (pollens of grass, flowers, for example) which caused the trouble in the former placeFriday, May 25.

Definitions and declarations from this week's reading:— Economic expert: "An economic expert is one called in to find drastic remedies for financial crises which would not have occurred if there weren't any economic experts."

Doctors: " A doctor is someone who pours medicine, of which he knows little, into people of whom he knows less."

Anoreciating fools: "A clever man would often be much at a loss without the company of fools." ■\Vliv you visit, doctors: " Of nil the symntoms which cause patients to seek medical aid. the commonest are pain and fear." Names in this diary fictitious. (Copyright.)