Catching Cold.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Issue 47, 15 April 1899, Page 1

Catching Cold.

Many people may be surprised to hear that even in this world there are places where it is impossible to catch a cold, simply because there are no colds to catch. There are facts, however, which seem to prove this. For example, Nansen and his men during the three years which they spent in the Arctic regions never caught a cold. Yet they were exposed to cold, fatigue, and wet to a degree which we at home can hardly realise. Especially one remembers how Nansen and his comrade -Tohansen during their wonderful expedition on foot over the polar ice went on, day after day, clad in clothes which were so saturated with perspiration that they froze by day into one solid mass of ice, which even cut into the flesh ; how every night when they tucked themselves up in their sleeping bags the first hour was spent in thawing ; how they lay shivering, their frozen socks spread across their chests, until their clothes gradually became wet and soft, and eventually comfortable and warm. It was indeed a damp bed to sleep in. Yet they never caught a cold ; and, mark this, for it is very important, with the exception of Nansen's brief attack of lumbago, their health did not suffer in any way from exposure. It may be said they were all strong men, marvellously hardy ; they were able to stand the cold. But what is the fact ? Directly they reached civilisation they all caught cold. Nansen's own statement to the writer was — " There is, of course, no doubt that cold is an infectious disease. We had none during our journey, and we all got it — very badly, too — at the very moment we reached • Norway." And this seems to be the universal experience of Arctic explorers. The members of the Jackson- Harmsworth Expedition, who stayed for three years in Franz Josef Land, never once suffered from colds, yet they, too, underwent, at times, great exposure. The Arctic summer was exceedingly damp — cold, mistladen east winds prevailing. Wet feet were the rule, a " chronic experience." " On one occasion six of us were exposed to a gale in a boat for three days and nights, when we were all drenched to the gkin with rain and spray ; and when we arrived on land, being unable on account of the inclement weather and want of drift or other wood to light a fire, we had to remain in our wet clothes, and, practically, to let them dry upon our bodies, yet none of us took cold." It is noteworthy that the only ill effects ever felt were slight twinges of rhemutism, experienced by two or three only, and quite of a fleeting nature. Indeed, their doctor declares that none of these men 1 were the worse for their long sojourn in those northern regions, while some at least were the better for it. Yet they also, with' one or two exceptions, suffered from.severecolds directly they reached civilisation.

Then there is the classical instance of the St. KilcU cold. On that rocky, lonely island, lying some forty miles beyond theWestern Hebrides, there are nigh upon. 100 inhabitants, who keep a few sheep and cows, cultivate some forty acres, and collect the eggs, feathers, aud young ot the numerous sea-fowl. Their coast is so. piecipitous, and their seas so stormy, that for eight months out of the twelve they are practically inaccessible. Formerly they were visited only once a year by a ship from the mainland. Now several call there during the summer, including excursion steamers from Liverpool and Glasgow. The curious point is that whenever a ship reaches the island, all the inhabitants, including the very infant* at the breast, are seized with a cold. This fact has been known for nearly 200 years, and greatly interested Dr Johnson when he aud Boswell were making their famous tour of the Hebrid33. The problem of this St Kilda cold long puzzled learned men, who seem never to have suspected the simple explanation of the mystery. One solution suggested was that the steward always brought whisky ■with him, and that ix was the intemperance and jollity which took place on the occasion which caused the epidemic. Another explanation was that a ship could only reach the island from the mainland when the wind was from the north-east. " The wind, not the strangers, caused the cold " This cold is still characteristic of the isMhd, and is called by the inhabitants the •' strangers' cold." On the arrival of the first steamer every summer all the island folk fall victims ; afterwards many of them escape. The attack lasts eight or ten days and is often accompanied by bronchial catarrh. The inhabitants aftirm that if the ship comes from Liverpool or Glasgow the cold they catch is more severe than if it comes from the Hebrides. All these instances, and there are many such, go to show that a cold is an infectious disease, prevalent widely no doubt, but only where man, perhaps only where civilised man exists. — London Spectator.