1937-03-06 — Page 11

THE CHINA MAIL, MARCH 6, 1937.

Medical science, long baffled sees hope in virus r research

Colds-Is There No Relief?

M

it?

rep-

ELANCHOLY days are here. Medical science gires due credit ment. Yet other students were giv- were improved by the treatment.

The annual chorus of snuffles, to these factors as having a part in en plain sugar (lactose) pills and The "builder-upper" school sneezes and coughs resound in office, the spread of colds. Lower your 35 per cent of them claimed they resents possibly the most recent on ferry and at home. And argu- vitality, in fact, in any way, and if were better because of the treat- thought in the battle against cold ments as usual are: What causes a the little bug comes along it is like ment!

bugs. Get good and strong, its ad- cold, and what can be done about ly to get you. A chilling of any .. The best results came from a vocates say, and when you catch one part of the body may start a combination of codein and papaver- the bug your system will down it. Medical science has been trying cold, for nature's body-heating ap- ine, opium derivatives, with con- Intensify the fortifications of the to discover the answers to these paratus is delicate and easily upset, siderable improvement reported in body by careful attention to diet; questions for many years at huge yet outdoor workers are not over- 75 per cent, of the cases. Opium, take spinach our old friend-cod- cost. It has experimented with susceptible to colds, and office wor- incidentally, was used as far back liver oil, butter, eggs, carrots, milk. chimpanzees and human beings, it hers have nine times as many colds as the seventeenth century for re- Prunes and tomatoes for vitamin has studied the health of the Eski- as taxi drivers and four times as lief from nasal congestion and A; cereals, fruits and nuts for vita-

Eskimos mos and the habits of germ life to many as army men.

go secretion.

min B. Drink plenty of water, little avail. Typhoid, yellow fev- through the long Arctic Winter

sleep for eight hours every night, er, malaria and many virulent dis- without colds, only to start sneezing. A couple of decades ago it was eat regularly. eases have yielded to the micros- when visitors arrive in the Spring. found that workers in vinegar fac- And if you want to try one of cope and the laboratory, yet the It is universally admitted that tories and war-gas plants suffered the thousands of "remedies,” draw so-called common cold has remain colds are highly contagious, yet little from colds, and from that it any one from a hat. If you get a ed to all intents and purposes X, that is only part of the story. Dr. was concluded that chlorine gas cold, go to bed or take that "long the unknown quantity. Doctors still Edward S. McSweeney of the New would kill cold germs. This treat- ocean voyage" your optimistic doc- repeat the old saw that "an imtreat- York Tuberculosis and Health As- ment has its adherents and is still tor recommends.

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ed cold lasts fourteen days, while sociation points out that nose and frequently used, but the method lost Do all these things, and you'll a treated cold can be cured in a throat doctors, who are in constant its popularity for several reasons. probably get a cold just the same.

contact with cold germs, are fortnight."

not Irresponsible firms went into

Into this dark picture New Year's Day brought a gleam of light when Dr. Wendell M. Stanley received the award of the American Asso- ciation for the Advancement of

By George H. Copeland

บ

can

the Your best friend says he avoids colds by putting on his "longs," but too much clothing is said to be as bad as not enough. Exercise may help you, or it may tire you so that... you fall a quick victim to that in- Science for his research into the affected any more than other per- business of administering the gas. sidions filterable virus. Certainly,

The administering of vaccines, in this case, one man's meat nature of the viruses which, it is sons. Though some physicians fav-

our one factor, such as acid condi- each containing some 1,500 millions easily be another's poison. generally accepted, cause, colds.

tion of the system or wet feet, as of our old friends the streptocci, Meanwhile, time cures all things. These creatures, so small that they

most important, the fact is that pneumococci and so on, is a fairly The snuffles and sneezes, soft and cannot be seen through a micros-

of colds treatment. mild in the Fall, rise to a crescendo cope, are, according to Dr. Stau- there is no single cause of colds, recent method

and perhaps for that reason no uni- These, it is contended, stimulate in January, only to die away with ley, protein molecules existing on the borderline between the living

veral cure has yet been discovered. the anti-cold bodies, the phagocyte the departure of the March on. and the dead With this as a new

Modern medical theory tells the soldiers of the system, to resist the Remember that starting-point, medicine, which has story somewhat as follows: In every attacking germs. Yet there is con- been studying viruses for some person's nose and throat are a lot siderable controversy about their forty-five years, may now be able to of bacteria, unpleasant little things, value. A New York newspaper find something to combat therm. always looking for trouble but found them 50 per cent effective, needing help before they can start yet Britain's Post Office, in three something. Their names alone are years of experimentation with vol-

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There come times in the city's

life when, following a sharp drop terrifying streptococcus, staphylo- unteer postal workers, found that in the temperature or a spell of coccus, pneumococcus, influenza only 10 per cent of the subjects particularly nasty weather, about bacillus, Friedlander's bacilius and like. They need stirring up,

every other person one meets has here is where the newest dis-

are

that hang-dog. "hope-I-die" ex- pression. Those unaffected by the covery of medicine regarding colds Scourge sympathise in a somewhat comes in the filterable virus. superior manner, tell the sufferers This virus is too small to rate as why they themselves never get a germ; it cannot be tasted, felt colds, that Dr. Blank's So-and-So or seen. It can pars through un- keeps them immune and then ap

glazed porcelain, as can the minute pear the next day with a red nose bug that spreads infantile paralysis. or an ominous tickling in the throat..

Just as there are, in popular opin- Medicine complains that snuff ion, scores of diverse causes for ing and sneezing is, like a little colds, so there are remedies without knowledge, a dangerous thing, and number. Many modern ones one that should be taken very ser The stocking is still wrapped around only old favourites in a new guise. iously. Statistics bear out this

sore throats. A professor at a contention

The common cold is important his classes that, to cure colds, "put leading medical college used to tell not only because of its frequency the patient to bed and hang his hat but also because of its consequen- ces-complications can sometimes

on the bedpost. Give him plenty of be traced to it for tenor even whisky, and when he sees two hats thirty years. About 50 per cent of

he's getting better. all disabling diseases, according to Dr. Lago Galdston of the New York Many types of remedies have Academy of Medicine, start their been tried in recent years, and their early stages with a cold in the head. popularity has fluctuated almost as Some 75 per cent of all pneumonia regularly as women's fashions. cases begin with a "cold.”:

Among them are drugs, chlorine Sufferers are usually quite certain gas inhalations and vaccines. Then how they caught their cold. They there are the builder-uppers” sat with a draft on the back of the the vitamins, special diet and sun- neck, wore too light clothing and ray lamps. As a rule they make the temperature dropped, got their cold sufferers more comfortable and. feet wet, smoked too mach, worked even at times do much toward get- too hard and got tired out, or de- ting the patient back to normal, but veloped an acid condition of the they are far from being certain and system. Or they were close by universal cures. when some one sneezed, conghed or A few years ago Dr. Howard S. even talked They were kissed by Diehl perimented with the effects coldbearer, were too near when a of dr ~on some 1,000 University woman powdered her red nose, or of Minnesota students - who were

towel or glass rich in contact with one of these enemies of the healthy.

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ith colds After using

ives between 3

Sprigg is

gentle

cubbing, Sprigg, Feel it in the air; So I doff by Winter clothing

Add I don by Subber clothes Add for weeks and weeks to-

gether

Vainly try to blow dose.

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