Common cold

“ Spring winds are very hard upon those who are subject to chest or throat irritation—in other words, to common colds—and I must take this opportunity of entreating girls of this class never to neglect a cold. Why? Because one cold on top of another, as the saying is, will certainly result in the end in thickening of the delicate mucous membrane that lines the lungs, and if this takes place you may look forward to being in time a confirmed invalid the greater part of the year through winter cough. ”

“ All the information, needful to exhibit to the sufferer the dangers frequently arising from the neglect of what is called a common cold; and of the means whereby its course may be nipped in the very bud, and its more direful effects removed in its latent stages, and other matter of general importance is advanced; which, while it becomes a friendly beacon to warn him of danger, will at once point to a safe and salutary, and not less certain than salutary remedy. ”

“ How common it is to see a woman entirely wrapped up, with a handkerchief held to her nose,—the whole body as tense as it can be,—wondering "Why does it take so long to get rid of this cold?" To get free from a severe cold there should be open and clear circulation throughout the whole body. The more the circulation is impeded, the longer the cold will last. To begin with, the cold itself impedes the circulation; and if, in addition, we offer resistance to the very idea of having a cold, we tighten our nerves and our bodies and thereby impede our circulation still further. ”

“ Who does not know the pain in the head, the stiff neck, the stuffy nose, the frequent sneeze, the kerchief which is oftener in the hand than in the pocket? Such, with a greater or less amount of peevishness, are the symptoms of the common cold in the head; which torments its victim for two or three days, or perhaps as many weeks, and then departs, and is forgotten. Few people take much notice of colds ”

“ In the far north, and high on mountains where the temperature is low, colds are not as common as they are in crowded cities and especially among those who are much in crowds. Cold weather only predisposes to the infection, and after it has occurred it is sure to run its course. That course may be longer or shorter. The cold is usually preceded by chilly feelings. Every one knows it is possible to have chilly feelings that seem to portend a cold, yet be well the next day. ”

“ The fever now to be treated of is the most common amongst mankind; especially seamen, who are ever exposed, to have the perspiration obstructed. It however would save many from the grave, and almost as many from being food for the fish, was it a little more regarded than what it actually is.
The sound of a cold is so gentle, that custom has almost made it effeminacy to pay any regard to it; and yet, if we maturely examine, we shall find the most malignant, acute, and mortal diseases, first make their appearances by the symptoms of a cold,——But let us proceed to particulars. ”

“ What is more common, with a patient who is the subject of some chronic organic disease, than to be suddenly cut off by the occurrence of acute inflammation in the affected organ after exposure to cold? Every medical practitioner can answer. In remarking upon the influence of cold as a cause of mortality. ”

“ Every thing that has the effect of weakening the system and so diminishing the power of evolving heat, favors the morbific effect of cold, and is a predisposing cause of disease. The most common of these debilitating circumstances are fasting, evacuations, fatigue, a last night’s debauch, excess in venery, long watching, much study, and rest or inaction immediately after it, or after great exercise.
The faculty of evolving heat is weak in old persons and in the newly born, and these are often the victims of the power of cold. ”

“ There is no doubt at the present time that common colds result from infection; in that sense they are acute diseases. It seems to be the fact, however, that the organisms which cause them are pretty constantly present in the air passages of our throats and lungs ready to invade the body whenever opportunity offers. Very recently it has been shown that rapid chilling of the skin is accompanied by contraction of the blood vessels in the linings of the throat and air passages. ”

“ There are many other forms of ailments which, if not so deadly as this disease, exercise a most pernicious influence on health.
Common colds play a far greater havoc with the health of a nation than is usually supposed. For it is not merely the loss of time spent in getting rid of them, but the infinitely more important fact that these chills and catarrhs upset digestion, lower the general health, and lay it open for deadlier enemies to enter. Sometimes colds are of the influenza nature, the result of a germ, which may fix itself in the throat in spite of all precautions. ”

“ Colds are contracted from other persons having colds, just as diphtheria is contracted from diphtheria. Arctic explorers exposed to all the conditions ordinarily supposed to produce colds do not suffer from these ailments until they return to civilization and become infected by contact with their fellowmen.... While common colds are never fatal, the complications and sequelæ are serious. These are rheumatic fever, pneumonia, sinusitis, nephritis, and a depressed vitality which favors other infections and hastens the progress of organic diseases. ”

“ That, while persons of all ages, sexes, occupations, social positions, and in all conditions of general health—from the delicate infant and the frail consumptive to the most robust man—have colds, say to-day, from the slightest causes, often enough, indeed, when utterly at a loss to account for the attack; next month, or next week, perhaps, the same individuals—the frail and delicate ones, even—may pass through severe exposures to wet and cold, even to the point of being chilled through and through, without producing a symptom of this disorder. ”

“ Clyde.
“There’s the measure of their intelligence, then,” returned the Health Master. “Sickness is sickness, just as surely as a flame is fire; and there is no telling, once it’s well started, how much damage it may do.”
“But a cold is only in the head, or rather, in the nose,” persisted Mrs. Sharpless.
“That’s where you’re wrong. Coryza is a disease of the whole system, and it weakens the whole system. The symptoms are most apparent in the nose and mouth: and it is from the nose and mouth that the disease is spread. But if you’ve got the cold you’ve got it in every corner of your being. ”

“ The dark and gloomy days of winter confine us within doors, and, by reducing our activity and exposure to open air, depress the metabolism; the influence of smoke and fog, gloom of house and streets, cavernous places of business and dark dwellings, intensify the depression. The immunity to a cold after an infection lasts but a short while, and when children return, after the summer holidays, to school and damp chill autumn days, infection runs around. ”

“ What gives the people colds and makes them sick? You hear many say "I had not had a cold this fall, until I came into our new house." Brethren and sisters that have come into the city from living in the canyons, and those who have arrived from the States this season, have not been troubled with colds until they came into warm houses; that gives them colds, by depriving their lungs of the benefit they are organized to receive from the atmosphere. ”

“ The next fact in favor of the infectious character of a cold is that it begins with a chill, followed with a fever, runs a definite self-limited course, and, barring complications, gets well of itself in a certain time, just like the measles, scarlet fever, pneumonia, or any other frank infection.
Colds are also followed by inflammations, or toxic attacks in other organs of the body, lungs, stomach, bowels, heart, kidneys, nerves, etc., just like diphtheria, scarlet fever, or typhoid, only, of course, of milder form and less frequently. ”

“ Neither shall we spend time in enumerating all the various symptoms of colds, as they are pretty generally known. It may not however be amiss to observe, that almost every cold is a kind of fever, which only differs in degree from some of those that have already been treated of.
No age, sex, or constitution, is exempted from this disease; neither is it in the power of any medicine or regimen to prevent it. The inhabitants of every climate are liable to catch cold, nor can even the greatest circumspection defend them at all times from its attacks. ”

“ Now I cheerfully admit that to put on additional clothing before the severity of the weather demands it, actually produces the effect here supposed; but to endure severe cold, on the contrary, never hardens anybody. Nay, more, it enfeebles. Cold, when combined with the evils of poverty, produces more mischief and destroys more lives than any one disease in the whole catalogue of human maladies. ”

“ Colds do not "run into" consumption or pneumonia, but they bear much the same relation to them that good intentions are said to do to the infernal regions. They release the lid of a perfect Pandora's box of distempers—tuberculosis, pneumonia, rheumatism, bronchitis, Bright's disease, neuritis, endocarditis. A cold is no longer a joke. A generation ago a prominent physician was asked by an anxious mother, "Doctor, how would you treat a cold?" ”

“ And yet this mortality does not represent a hundredth part of the mischief done, for we have to take into consideration all those thousands who, although surviving these diseases and others, such as scarlet fever, measles, whooping-cough, mumps, and croup, the dangers of which are vastly increased by exposure to cold, have been permanently injured by them.
The evils of cold are clearly shown by the enormous death-rate of cold countries—a death-rate chiefly made up by infantile mortality. ”

“ Colds are commonly due to sudden changes of temperature, and are caused by the sudden closing of the pores of the skin, thus preventing the escape of those waste matters of the body which Nature has designed should be expelled in that direction. The blood is thus driven inward, causing congestion. If the system is in a sound, healthy condition, with respiration good and the colon clean, it should be next to impossible to take cold. If, however, there is a weak spot in the body, be sure the cold will find it, when, if not promptly dealt with, serious results may ensue. ”

“ The practice of going out of a heated, as well as an impure atmosphere late in the evening, and often without sufficient clothing, exposes the individual to cold, rheumatism, pleurisy, and fever. Many a young lady,—and, I fear, not a few young gentlemen,—get the consumption by taking colds in this manner.
Not only the health of the body, but the mind and morals, too, are often injured. ”

“ Slight colds, in some constitutions, are matters of little moment; but in others they are frequently attended by the most serious consequences, and always increase a natural predisposition to diseases of the throat and chest. The habit of thinking and speaking lightly of colds, among the former, causes the latter too often to regard them as of little account; but in this they commit a dangerous and too often fatal error. Almost every case of confirmed and hopeless disease of the lungs may be traced back to a slight cold. ”

“ Kinds of colds.—A person takes most of the germs of colds through his nose and mouth. If they grow only in his nose, we say that he has a cold in his head. If they grow in his throat, he has a sore throat, or tonsillitis. If they reach as far as the upper part of his windpipe, he is hoarse, or has a cough, or the croup. If the germs are planted in his lungs, he may have bronchitis or pneumonia. All these kinds of sickness often spread from one person to another. If one person in a family has a cold, others in the family often catch cold from him. ”

“ Keeping colds from spreading.—You should keep away from other persons while you have a cold, or other catching disease, so as to keep from spreading the sickness. You ought not to go visiting, or go to school, or to church, or to other meeting places. When you cough or sneeze, you should hold a handkerchief to your mouth, so as to keep from blowing disease germs from your throat and nose. You ought to sleep in a bed by yourself, so that no one may take the disease germs from your bedclothes. ”

“ The curves show that the maximum annual mortality from the different diseases groups around certain specific conditions of temperature and moisture combined. Thus, cold and moist weather is accompanied with a high death-rate from rheumatism, heart diseases, diphtheria, and measles ”

“ After the correspondent has learned that our ancestors had more colds than we, had poorer health, and died twenty years younger, perhaps he will listen to proof that his unclean warm air weakens the body and makes it an easy prey to cold germs. ”

“ On the other hand, it must not be forgotten, that too warm clothing is a source of disease,—sometimes even of the same diseases which originate in exposure to cold,—and often renders the frame more susceptible of the impressions of cold, especially of cold air taken into the lungs. ”

“ It is a familiar fact that exposure and chilling will often produce a cold. This is usually due to the fact that the nerve centers controlling the circulation of the skin are over-sensitive, and exhibit a sort of hair-trigger reaction to exposure, causing a disturbance of the circulation, and of the heat-regulating machinery of the body of which the spongy shelf-like turbinated bones in the nose are an important part. Skin training, then, appears to be the first hygienic steps toward establishing a resistance to colds. ”