PREVENTION OF COLDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 January 1933, Page 8

PREVENTION OF COLDS

1 PROTECTION BY VACCINES. By a vaccine is meant a preparation of dead bacilli of the particular kind that it is desired to combat. The injection of such a dose, or series of - doses, is believed to stimulate in the blood-stream an increased production of bodies hostile to the bacillus (■writes the Medical correspondent of tho London “Daily Telegraph”). These fresh anti-bodies- reinforce those already attacking the living bacilli that have invaded th© body, or form an additional protection against some possible future- attack. In certain diseases where the responsible bacillus is known and can be cultivated (as in typhoid fever, for instance), such a preventive vaccine can be extremely effective. With regard to the common cold, this is now generally believed to be caused by a small, filter-passing virus. Since it is not known, and cannot therefore be cultivated, a specific vaccine against it cannot at present be prepared. It is believed that the worst effects of a cold, those that make it “heavy.” lasting for on© or more weeks, are duo to secondary invasions of other bacilli, taking- advantage of the opening- made by the virus. Some of these are known, such as the pneumococcus, and the organism known as Pfeiffer's. Against, these vaccines can bo prepared. Though not invariably effective, these vaccines do seem to protect a considerable number of people against the more unpleasant accompaniments of a cold, either preventing it from becoming noticeable or reducing its duration Io no more than a day or two.

A dose, or preferably two, received within a, few days of each other, will in these cases confer a protection lasting for several months. This can bo renewed periodically. For people especially susceptible to frequent and severe colds it is a measure at any rate worth trying.