Medicine: Take It Easy

Before the year is out, almost every man, woman & child in the U.S. will have had at least one cold. The cost (in doctors’ fees, drugs and lost wages) will top $1 billion. In a progress report on man’s fight against the common cold, the current Journal of the American Medical Association glumly reports: no progress.

Said a Journal consultant, ignoring recent enthusiastic claims for anti-histaminics*nothing has been found to prevent or cure colds. This goes for salves, nose drops, gargles, vaccines and every other nostrum. All that the victim can do is try to get some relief. For a stuffy nose, drops are helpful (though sometimes they boomerang and cause renewed stuffiness). Aspirin soothes headache, fever and muscle pains which go with a cold. Alcohol, the Journal concedes, “in reasonable doses,” expands the blood vessels and restores circulation to chilled skin and mucous membrane. But the old standby, rest in bed, is still the treatment doctors like best.

*Developed for the relief of allergic disorders such as asthma and hay fever.