HOW TO KEEP COLDS OFF.

Waikato Times, Volume 2632, Issue 2632, 25 May 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

HOW TO KEEP COLDS OFF.

I am not going to suggest means for curing colds in this paper ; I do enongh, I think, for one day, if I indicate plans or methods of prevention. And I cannot surely better effect my ol'jpct tlnn by trying to explain when applied cold is dangerous, and when it is merely a bugbear. I have given one example iu my own person : the corollary is beware of draughts. There is danger, I mean, in having one portion of the body e'iposed to chill, the other portions being warm. Example : I do maintain and defy contradiction in saying that many thousands of people owe their fatal illnesses to colds caught in bed. For here the front of the chest is kept warm, so are the arms and whole body — the face and head excepted, but they are inured—while the one wee morsel left exposed to chill, especially in those who sleep on the side, is not much bigger, perhaps, than the heel of Achilles, and lies beneath the nape of the neck and between the shoulder blades. Have you never felt cold just there,reader, towards morning on a winter night? Protect that spot. If delicate, there is where the chest should bo shielded by a chest protector. People subject to colds in the chest should do all they can—and that is a good deal—to prerent recurrence of their complaints. We hear people guy sometimes, ' Yes, I am rather subject to colds, but they don't last long,' Tho warning answer to this is, They do not last long for two reasons: first, you aro young or middle-aged and have strength to throw them off; and secondly, the mucous moinbrane has not ypt become chronically thickened. But advancing years make matters worso, and each winter's cough prepares the ground for its successor. When a person has taken cold, or when tho pores on the outer surface of the body are closed up, a very good thing to do is to put into a large pan or tub a pail of water as hot as a person can stand it; then step in, and, standing there, dip a towel into the hot water, and rub it quickly and vigorously over the whole body. This need not take more than four or five minutes, and tho person can then rub himself dry, still standing in the water, then dry his feet, and dress, and go about his business. This usually ends the cold, and it is much oasier and healthier than it is to dose and doctor and be "sick with a cold" for a week. If it is done quickly, and in a warm room, there is no danger of adding to the cold, as there would bo if one should spend con. siderable time in bathing and iiozzling in warm water, and get the pores open by so doing. The hot water just cleanses the surface of the skin, restores tho circulation, allows tbe d;ad matter to pasi off, and the cold cures itself. The cough of people affected with lung trouble can often be relieved in the same way, The more matter there is carried off through the skin, the less there is to burden and oppress the lungs; and the heating of the blood in the feet will frequently relieve oppression aud pains in tho chest.— Fa rail v Doctor.