HOW TO ESCAPE COLDS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 73, 20 December 1920, Page 5

HOW TO ESCAPE COLDS

The view is generally hold by people brought up in the fetish of mid-Victor-ian fear of fresh air, and in particular of night air, that "colds" in the head are duo to exposure to cold, writes n ]>rofessor of medicine in ilho "Daily Mail." For fear of catching a chill mothers over-clothe their children arid confine them indoors, and thus weaken thorn. for in truth it is exercise in the fresh air which makes them strong and hardy. For the same reason mothers-shut: up I the windows of rooms and occasion the very illnesses they hope to avoid,- l>y increasing the spread of infection from one to another and by putting the, mem-. brano of the breathing ifubes of their children to a disadvantages in ctaely humid, stagnant air. The blouses worn by girls and cut low i in the neclc to show their charms are , called "pneumonia, blouses," but really the number of cases of .pneumonia in (ho year is not leasi! altered whether fashion' dictates high or low-cut dresses. As long as the- girls keep themselves comfortably warm by clothing; their j bodies, it is not in the least to tjieir dis-. : advantage that they wear transparent ■ silk stockings and low-cut blouses. Mothers who think Mint, by 'over-cloth-ing, confinement indoors in warm rooms, and stuffing with food they can protect their children from illness are quite in the wrong. Colds are spread by infec- ' tion from others or are sot uj> by tho microbes one carries in one's own breathing passnges, and tho microbes gain power when the resistance of the membrane of tho'breathing passages is lowered by the cohditions of life. Pneumonia can bo caused in animals by blowing 6ome of the culture fluid teeming with the pnen-mococcus microbe right into tihe lungs, not by merely infecting the nose and throat. It is probable then that pneumonia may be caused in men by the inhalation right into the lungs of droplet of ntucus sneexed out < by people with "colds," whose oolds aro diip to a virulent strain of pnou-uiococ-cus. People with such 'colds' nmy possibly infect themselves by snuffling droplets from their own noses or throats into their lungs. There are unsettled people-country people, who como into towns, or children on first going to 6chool—who are infected by tho carriers of microbes to which they have not becomo immunised. Tho town folk are kept more or less immunised by frequent infection wivli small doses. Tho immunity £0 set up is very important:'equally important is the keeping of the body in a vigorous stato by an abstemious life and regular hours of sleep ans open-door exercise. • Thero is the seed—tho microbe; the 6oil —the stato of tho respiratory membrane, and the conditions of the environment which, together, mako for the spread of infectious colds; and cold, wen weather may act not by chilling people who go out in it, but by driving them into the close, stagnant, over-heated and humid air of room®, and so putting their vospirftibry membrane and blooa into a less resistant stato. Those who face bad weather, and keep Gt by hard exercise, and arc small caters, are singularly immune from infec- . tious colds, live long, and enjoy life.