THE BEST WAY TO CURE A COLD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 84, 29 May 1908, Page 4

THE BEST WAY TO CURE A COLD.

-- • ♦ (By a Family Physician.) The primary cause of a cold is want of pure, fresh air. Badly-ventilated living-rooms are necessarily full of impure air, and if artificial light — especially gas-light—is used in them the air becsmes vitiated.

Two predisposing causes of a cold must be carefully noted. Either the body is exposed, when weakened by fatigue or constitulkmally depressed, to a cold current If air, as on a draughty railway platform, to damp sheets or clothes, or even to the devitalised atmosphere resulting from letting a fire before which one has been comfortably dozing, get gradually low, or the pores of the skin are opened in a vitiated and warm atmosphere, such as a crowded church chapel, or theatre. These causes may combine, and a cold then becomes doubly severe. Frequently persons ascribe their colds to going from some warm place to the open air, when, as a matter of fact, they have already taken cold in a close, unventilated atmosphere. Slight or partial attack of cold may be treated successfully by immediate recourse to fresh, pure air, gently walking the best part of a day, taking a warm bath at night, soaking the legs in hot mustard and water to remove the head congestion, and drinking a warm, thin gruel before sleeping to induce natural perspiration. The windows should be partially open if the weather is dry. To relieve the "stuffy" sensation about the nose there is nothing better than the application of the tallow candle of our grandmothers. As, however, modern tallow candles frequently contain arsenic, plan unsaltcd lard, or almost any kind of thick grease, may be substituted. For the tickling sensation in the throat there is no remedy superior to linseed tea, made by pouring boiling water on fresh seed, then slightly sweetened, acidulated, with lemon juice, and the usual liquorice left out. The tightness of the chest is best relieved by a warm bath at bed-time, followed by rubbing into the chest a spoonful of hot olive or lanoline, either of which will effect the purpose, though the smell of the latter is against its widespread use. If this latter symptom of tightness, or pain in the chest, is at all severe the patient must be put to bed in an airy room, a fire burning, and the window a few inches open in clear weather. There must be only just enough bed-cover-ing to be comfortable. When a warm bath is given it should be in the bedroom, the windows should be shut, and the immersion must be all over, except the head, and not one pari at a time.