REMEDIES FOR COLDS

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 100, 8 April 1936, Page 14

REMEDIES FOR COLDS

The Old-Fashioned Way What is the best simple treatment for a cold? This question is often discussed among doctors, as among the public in general, ft is an odd fact that even among medical men there are wide variations in method, writes a doctor in the “Daily Mail.” 'There is first of all the alkali treatment. This consists in taking a teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate (ordinary baking soda) in ma glass of hot water three times a day. A remedy not often used is iodine and milk. Three drops of tincture of iodine are taken in a glass of milk at regular intervals, and in some eases the effect is dramatic. Much benefit as a preventive has been found from the use of a tablet of calcium lactate, which is tucked in between the cheek and the upper jaw and slowly dissolved over two or three hours. It is claimed that sneezing and running from the nose will cease entirely if the tablet is taken in time. Quinine, of course, has long been | popular, but a method for which much is claimed is the use of quinipe sulphate, as much as will cover a threepenny bit, dissolved in half a glass of cooking sherry taken three times a day—a dose at the beginning of a cold will in many cases prevent its development. The oily inhalations are to-day extremely popular, especially those containing the drug ephedrine which possesses a valuable decongestive action on the inflamed nasal mucous membrane. The value of relieving general constitutional symptoms by aspirin is widely known, but perhaps the good old-fashioned treatment of hot lemonade with or without a tablespoon of brandy or whisky and ten grains of Dover’s powder, then bed with a hot water-bottle and extra blankets, is as good as any.