HEALTH COLUMN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2527, 20 August 1902, Page 64

HEALTH COLUMN.

Colds are infectious. Dr H W. Gardner writes to the Lancet : The evidence that all colds are infectious and tint -without the prc-ence of infection it is impossible to catch a cold is piobably far stronger than most peopb imagine. Colds are almost unknown in the Arctic Circle, not on account of the action of the continuous cold, but because the gi eater part of that region is uninhabited. When ,-ir William Lnnwav and his men v. ere c.xploung Spitzb^rgen. though they were expos°u to great privations and weie almost constantly wet through, they nevei caught a cold; but d>re:tly they came down to Andree's settl°nient on the coast, wharc some 40 men were living in almost constant intercourse -with the mainland, they all developed violent colds. Nansen and his m:n never caught a cold during all the thiee years of his voyage, notwithstanding the utmost exposure; but directly they reached civilisation on the coast of Norway, though still within the Arctic Circle, they all suffered badly from colds. The weather i-3 not always keen and bracing in the Arctic regions. During the summer time, in Franz Josef Land at anyrate, it is exceedingly damp, and uuv nnst-laden east winds prevail; yet'^the members of the Jackson - Hirmsworth expedition nev^r caught a cold there, though all of them aid so direjtly they reached civilisation. More noteworthy still were Conway's e*periences m the Himalayas. While among the mountains he and his men, notwithstanding great expos-ire, never caught colds, nor did thsy even when they \ isited the small remote native villages ; but once they came down to a village where there was a" small European settlement in communication with the outer world, and th-.?re they all had bad col'K Nor is it only in the Arctic regions aivl among high mountains that cold? are absent ; the panic immunity from them is noticeable during long K dJ. voyages and when camping out in the desert ;* and, still more unexpectedly, in the host open-air sanatorium 1 ?, such f»s Nnrdraeh. where tin ventilation is practically perfect, it is found that the patient' do not catch cold. There is, I believe, plenty of other evidence to show that there are places remote fiom ordinary human life where cold cannot be caught whatever the e>posure; probably linny of your readers fin bring forward instance*. On the other h?nd, that ordinaiy colds ore in the highest degree infectious is now becoming a matter of common knowledge, and any medical man, if he goes about with < psn eyes, can collect evidence for himself. I have watched a cold pass from house to l.ouse, and have even traced it from one village to another, and "have .listened, not without some amusement, while the different sufferer? from it have explained to me just how they caught it— ascribing it to sonic open window, change of garment, or ether fancied imprudence. I know houses where all the members of the household, including visitors and chiHren, aie constantly catching colds; anJ. they are not the ciry or even the draughty houses, butstuffy, grimy, badly ventilated and daik ones. No doubt jt is possible to have an inflammation of the nasal mucous membrane, .is of the conjunctiva, from some simple irritant ; but such an event is rare, whereas the oidinary infections cold is by far the commonest of all di.*etu>es. fcsuiely, therefore, it is important that its infectiousness -huuld be fraiikly recognised.