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Chapter VII.

Colds or Catarrh.

"To have a cold," "to catch a cold," are, in England, especially in the winter season (which has been humourously described as being the whole of the year, except three days), such very common expressions that they may hardly seem to require any explanation. Everyone is supposed to know by personal experience what it is to have a cold.

In the south-west of the island every disease is supposed to arise either from a cold, or as they call it a "chill," or a "humour," and in other parts of England a vast number of complaints are attributed to a cold without much regard to accuracy. Sore throats are nearly always regarded as originating in a cold, indeed they are usually looked on as one form of a cold, though in many cases they are epidemic, in many constitutional, and often originate in bad teeth.

But the genuine cold, the real catarrh, as it is called by physicians, is a well marked disease by itself. Who has not known the langour, the aching of the limbs and back, the headache, especially in the forehead, the stuffed up nostrils, thirst, loss of appetite, and general good-for-nothingness that attend a regular cold, caught perhaps from wet feet, from standing in a draught of cold air, from being caught in the rain and wet through, from going into a cold damp church, from walking up and down your bed-room in your night shirt, trying to tranquillize your youngest hope and joy (?), from sticking one's head out of a window in reply to an urgent summons at the night bell, while endeavouring to impress upon an anxious and rather indignant papa, in expectancy, that it is desirable he should give his name and address if he wants you to go to the right place, while he is astonished that you do not recognise him in a pitch dark winter's night. Who has not in the course of their lives caught cold from some one or other of these causes?

What is to be the treatment of the complaint? It is in ordinary cases very simple. Stop at home—in bed if you like it, in a warm room at any rate; drink plenty of hot bland fluids, such as weak tea, thin gruel if you can drink it, thin arrowroot, mutton broth, beef tea—anything weak, watery, and warm, so as to promote perspiration. Take a vapour bath, if you can conveniently, or a hot bath, wrapping yourself well up afterwards. If the bowels are confined, take a mild dose of aperient medicines, if not, let them alone. If the headache is severe, and there is no secretion from the nose, inhale the steam of boiling water, which will afford immediate relief. Pursue this plan for a day or two, and you will soon find yourself better. In very severe cases it may be page 32 desirable to take a little saline medicine, such as a small dose of nitrate of potash, and sweet spirits of nitre, or a very small dose of antimony, to promote perspiration; but in all cases, when it can be done, I would rather advise a hot or vapour bath. When the feverish symptoms have subsided, great weakness is often left, and wine or stout may be required.

If a person who is subject to colds, feels one coming on, it is often an economy of time to go to a well-wanned bed at once, having plenty of clothes on, and a foot warmer in it, and take a stiff glass of the hottest rum and water that you can swallow. The usual result is to produce a copious perspiration, and after a few hours' sleep, the patient may awake quite well.

Putting the feet into hot water, in which a little mustard has been mixed, will often greatly relieve the headache. When the headache is very severe, in addition to inhaling the steam of hot water, wet rags to the forehead may be applied with benefit.

I have tried, personally, the wet sheet so strongly recommended by the hydropathists. The wretchedness I experienced on that occasion no tongue can tell. For two hours I lay the dampest and most miserable of human beings, loaded with bed clothes, but unable to rally or get warm. At last, in despair, I asked for some hot brandy and water, which I sucked through a tube, and after imbibing it felt much more comfortable, and speedily got into a perspiration. But never again will I try the wet sheet!

In the epidemic catarrh called influenza, the symptoms are of the same nature, but much more severe and dangerous. Influenza proves frequently fatal to old people, and to those debilitated by previous disease. It requires from the very first, treatment by tonics and stimulants, care being taken to procure an early evacuation of the bowels, if they are confined. In tolerably healthy persons, influenza is not a dangerous disease, although it is a severe one, and leaves behind it great debility.

Sometimes what is called a severe cold, is really an attack of bronchitis, limited to the larger bronchi. It must, of course, be treated as bronchitis—it is something more than catarrh.

That kind of cold which ends in sore throat has already been treated of.