NO GOLD” BONUSES

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 193, 12 June 1939, Page 2

NO GOLD” BONUSES

BRITISH EXPERIMENT ABSENCES REDUCED “No cold” bonuses for employees/, is one of the latest methods of attack on the common cold in Britain. Air. Wilfred Hill, director of an English .AJ id-lands firm, hit upon the idea as a result of the increasing, number of “cold” absences- among his workers. He- decided to give £1 Is to everyone going through the year without a cold and lie reduced absences from this cause by nearly ICvi per cent. “An important- part of the scheme, was to teach the workers how to avoid catching colds,” W. T. Downes/ the works manager, said, “so AirHill had a little booklet printed describing in simple language the right, food to eat. hew to take proper exercise, and how to diress correctly. Danger of Infection.“He also insisted that people who did catch a cold should not he allowed to remain at work to infect others. They are sent to. the welfare department-. and if necessary are sent home until free from infection. In this way we have reduced the number of colds considerably, and/at our last presentation of bonuses, which hag justtaken place, 85 per cent, of the staff received a guinea.’’ Before the scheme was introduced there were more eoldls among the women members of the staff than among, the men, and this was largely clue to the women insisting on slimming. Since they had received the booklet urging the importance of correct feeding there had been much less slimming. What Colds Cost. It is estimated that the common cold and complications resulting from it, cost "Britain roughly £20,000,6-00-a year. Year after year medical science continues its search for the cause and cure. Every now and then the hope of thousands of sneezing and coughing sufferers is raised by announcements. oif new remedies, but so far no real cure has been found,, though it is known that the cause is a virus infection. ‘ After two and a-lialf years’ exhaustive studv. during which observaliens were conducted on colds cuntracted by 6,579 students,. a group of. doctors at Harvard University reached the conclusion that the only effective cure was that- recommended by Hippocrates in ancient Greece,, namely to go to bed for a while. Every kind of treatment is being, tried by doctors and chemists in their attack on this common sco-urge. Antivaccines have been produced. In Now Y'ork an ultra-violet- “death-ray” lin.skeen used on cold microbes, and even airplane flights, to ail altitude of 10,000 feet for half, an hour are being tried. But there seems to be little diminution in the number of wateryeyed sufferers. Alany firms throughout Britain have adopted voluntary inoculation” among their staffs, but most of them admit- that in the majority of eases while it eases' suffering it does not really cure. Sir 'Kingsley Wood, when Al’imster of Health, declared that “anybody who could find a cure for colds would he entitled to any honour he cared to specify.”