How to Treat a Cold by Kate Lindsay

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 6, 1911

How to Treat a Cold

By Kate Lindsay

KATE LINDSAY, M. D.

THE first thing to do is to give the digestive organs a rest. In many cases, where there is catarrh of the stomach and indigestion, a large and thorough enema or a mild saline cathartic will help matters greatly. The old and feeble and infants and young children should have complete rest in bed for twenty-four hours. During this time no food should be taken, unless it be mild, strained fruit juices. After the acute stage is past, as manifested by the cessation of sneezing, aching, fever, and change in the character of the expectoration and cough, the former being now thicker, more like yellow pus, and the cough what is known as “loose” and “easier,” gruels, well-cooked grains, and zwieback may be added, but still no full meals should be taken.

The lessening of the constitutional symptoms indicates that nature is doing her work of cleaning, and is being successful in the battle with disease, and, if given a chance, will succeed. But extra work for the liver, kidneys, lungs, and mucous surface, caused by chilling and dampness, too much food, fatigue, or any other cause which adds to the work of the eliminative organs, may cause a relapse and further extension of the disease, involving not only the air-passages, but extending to the lung-cells, and causing pneumonia; involving also the digestive tract, and causing catarrh of the stomach and bowels, and even infecting the bile-ducts of the liver.

A neglected cold in the aged and feeble may, and often does, lead to a fatal pneumonia, because of lack of proper treatment at the outset.

Few either of people or physicians give much attention to the treatment of a “common cold,” as it is called, until some grave symptom develops. Then it is sometimes too late to save the patient. A few days’ rest, fasting, bathing, and cleansing the system at the outset of a cold might have saved many a life which, because of neglect of proper treatment at this time, was speedily taken by pneumonia; or perhaps the patient partially recovered, only to succumb to tuberculosis.

Infants and small children allowed to acquire the cold-catching habit by neglecting proper treatment at the outset, are likely to develop enlarged tonsils, chronic nasal catarrh, adenoid growths in the nose, and inflammation of the middle ear. These disorders may wreck their lives from mouth-breathing and deafness, causing dulness of intellect as well as physical ill health and weakness. Such patients suffer from repeated attacks of tonsillitis, and take cold easily. Mouth-breathing also greatly increases the danger of throat and lung infection, because the inspired air is not filtered and freed from germs and dirt by passing over the mucous surfaces of the nasal membranes, which, when healthy, free this important gaseous food from dirt, and also disinfect it by destroying disease germs.

The old and oft-repeated adage, “Feed a cold and starve a fever,” is responsible for much damage to both classes of patients. Undoubtedly the cold-taking victims have suffered the more from this treatment.

The chief directions for treating a cold hydropathically run something like this: Get the skin active by taking a hot bath, and inducing free perspiration, or take a hot foot-bath and drink plenty of hot lemonade or other hot drink. So the sneezing, watery-eyed city victim of a cold in the head rushes off to some bathing establishment to get rid of his coryza by sweating in a hot-water, Russian, Turkish, or electric-light bath. Then a ride home in the cold in a street-car, or a walk in the cold, damp air, chills the heat-relaxed cutaneous surface. More congestion and more wastes for the already overburdened mucous membranes and excretory organs result, and the patient is surprised to find his cold worse instead of better; in fact, he feels ill

enough to go to bed, which is just where he should be.

The hot treatment for the purpose of increasing the action of the skin, is all right in theory, but fails in practise because improperly administered. A hot bath should never be taken unless the patient suffering from cold has freed the alimentary canal, is giving the digestive organs a rest, and can lie down in a moderately warm, well-ventilated room for several hours afterward. A hot bath is best taken before going to bed at night. It should be followed by a cool sponge, spray, or cold-mitten friction, to tone up the skin. In fact, the moderately strong toning up of the skin by cool or cold bathing, especially in the morning, is much better than parboiling the cuticle and paralyzing the coats of the cutaneous blood-vessels by overheating through excessive hot bathing.

Summing up the treatment for an incipient cold: First, stop eating, to give the digestive organs needed rest, and the eliminative organs a chance to expel the toxins from the body. If the patient is weak, or a young child, he should rest in bed from twenty-four to forty-eight hours in a well-ventilated room, the temperature of which is not above sixty-five degrees. If there is nausea and loss of appetite, with coated tongue and constipated bowels, give a lavage, enema, or saline cathartic. To tone up the skin, give two or three cold-mitten frictions, sponges, sprays, or quick, short, cold, full baths, being sure to leave the skin warm and ruddy. At night a thorough hot bath may be taken once or twice at the outset, being careful to avoid chilling afterward. When the throat is sore and dry, spraying with hot water and salt,—a teaspoonful of salt to the pint,—or, better still, a nasal douche of the same, may relieve the pain and discomfort, and cleanse the mucous surfaces of the throat and nose. A pocket menthol inhaler is also useful in cases of this kind.

In infants, who often suffer from being unable to nurse when the nose is stopped up, the nostrils should be freed from dried mucus by cotton saturated in warm sweet oil or liquid vaseline. Wrap small pieces of the cotton around wooden toothpicks, making small swabs, and, dipping in the oil, cleanse out the nose thoroughly. Also apply oil to the outside, and gently massage the nose downward from root to openings. Keep the eyes cleansed with a warm saline solution; and watch closely for middle-ear infection in cases where a baby has a cold in the head.

Air-baths, sun-baths, and oil rubs are all good treatments for colds; also the use of soothing and disinfecting solutions by means of inhalers, sprays, nebulizers, etc. But when a cold has been contracted, and its symptoms have been manifested, systemic infection is indicated. Then the main treatment to shorten the attack, and prevent complications and troublesome or dangerous after-effects, is to fast, rest, cleanse the alimentary canal, and by judicious water treatment tone up the skin, avoiding overheating and chilling afterward by exposure to cold and dampness. Breathe pure air of moderate temperature.

A robust adult may overcome a cold at the very outset by fasting and by out-of-door exercise, provided he keeps active enough to avoid chilling the skin, and does not expose himself to dampness, or allow his feet to become cold.

Boulder, Colo.