TAKE A PINCH OF SNUFF

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 6 May 1925, Page 7

TAKE A PINCH OF SNUFF

(By a Student of Medicine in the Daily Chronicle.).

I often wonder why, in these chill days, people do not make use of an occasional pinch of menthol or other stuff as a preventive of “colds.” The reason may be that it is not generally known that our eyes, our noses and our mouths each and all produce a remarkable natural antiseptic endowed with the power of killing germs. This antiseptic is caused to flow freely by snuffing.

Thus the enemy is destroyed before it can gain a lodgment in the bronchial tubes.

The truth is that what we speak of as a “cold” is really only a vigorous effort by Nature to overwhelm her foes with a mass-production of “germ-killer." A pinch of “snuff” sets the process in motion before the germ arrives on the scene at allIt is an irritant; but its irritation is harmless. ,

This is the principle of vaccination brought into ordinary, everyday life. You give your nose a little trouble to warn it that it must prepare against a great one.

In America tlhey are now actually employing “poison gas’ ’for this purpose. People are exposed for a few minutes to the fumes of chlorine until their eyes are watering, and they seem to have caught tremendous colds in their heads.

These people, it is claimed, arc less liable to catch real colds than the average man or woman.

That is far too drastic. But the principle is certainly a sound one. . Another, milder, form of 'this selfvaccinal ion is the use of glycerine lozenges. Glycerine, when sucked in the mouth, promotes the flow of saliva, and also, to a lesser extent, the flow of tears, ihus eyes, nose, and throat are kept constantly bathed in natural antiseptic. This simple precaution is a real safeguard, as I have proved myself on many occasions.

But it is necessary to employ theße substances in moderation. Too much snuffing of menthol, for example, overstrains the nasal mucous membrane, and so dries it. If that happen* harm, instead of good has been done.