FETING AS A CURE FOR COLDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 68, 22 March 1939, Page 3

FETING AS A CURE FOR COLDS

“ r pHERE is a new cure for colds, influenza and all kindred ailments. and it is available to everyone who has the price of an aeroplane flight.” says a Reynolds News correspondent. “Dr. Rene Vuillemin. the French Air Force doctor, during the last war discovered it. As a result, to-day hundreds of men / are pursuing their normal voca- I tions, when but for him they would be coughing their lungs out in tuberculosis sanatoria in Arosa and other Swiss mountain resorts. ! - JUST because this obscure French i general practitioner, as he was in. 1914, found that the rarefied air of the skies cured incipient tuberculosis in wounded aviators, to-day children suffering from such diseases as whooping cough are being cured by taking aeroplane trips. “Latest sufferers to be cured are Audrey (seven) and Malcolm (four) Brooke, of Meanwood, Leeds. An hour’s flight from Yeadon Airport and their whooping cough vanished. “ ‘I take no credit for what has been done,’ Dr. Vuillemin told me at Croy-

' don Airport, before he left to fly to his native city, Marseilles. “ 'We doctors owe discoveries like this to sheer chance. Mine came when I was tending Gunyemer, the famous French air ace, during the war. He was a dying man when the Germans invaded France in 1914. Suffering from l an acute form of consumption he was | much too ill to fight. “ ‘He took up flying, and the man who ought to have died in three months lived three and a half years, suffered numerous wounds, and died i gloriously in action, after being awarded the highest decorations for valour. “ ‘Gunyemer's case was not an isolated one, and I am happy to think that my discovery contributed to the saving of little children from pain.’ “Dr. Vuillemin's views are backed up by the pilots who fly the giant liners on the leading European airlines. “Imperial Airways say: ‘Our pilots never catch cold. We believe this is due to being in the uncontaminated upper air.’ “A high official of K.L.M., the Royal Dutch Airline, told me: ‘lf you were

flying over the sea every day from Croydon to Amsterdam you would find the fresh air kept you in perfect health, no colds, no influenza, and no days off because of minor ills.” “M. Beaudry, head of the Air France organisation at Croydon, said: ‘Our pilots never suffer from the common cold. Even in influenza epidemics they keep fit. They attribute this to the fact they are flying at heights up to a mile above sea level every day in all weathers. They are protected from the elements by their enclosed cabin machines, but they get the benefit of the pure air.’ “A doctor, who has had much to do with the health of men of the Royal Air Force said: ‘I have found the flying personnel of the R.A.F. singularly free from the common cold and such ailments. I put this down to the fact that the relatively low pressure of the flyer’s atmosphere makes him use the whole of his lung capacity. “ ‘As a result, even though the germs do find a footing, they are neutralised and expelled before they have a chance to do any harm.’ “Captain Eric Noddings, Chief Pilot to Air Dispatch, told me: “ ‘Friends of mine, both civil and military pilots, have not had a cold or bout of influenza for years.’