CORRESPONDENCE.

CATCHING COLD.

[To ram EDITOR OD TER " SPECTITOR.1

SD:a—Many people may be surprised to hear that even in this world there are places where it is impossible to catch a cold, simply because there are no colds to catch. There are facts, however, which seem to prove this. For example, Nansen and his men during the three years which they spent in the Arctic regions never caught a cold. Yet they were exposed to cold, fatigue, and wet to a degree which we at home can hardly realise. Especially one remembers how Nansen and his comrade Johansen during their wonderful expedition on foot over the polar ice went on, day after day, clad in clothes which were so saturated with perspiration that they froze by day into one solid mass of ice, and even cut into the flesh; how every night, when they tucked them- selves up in their sleeping bags the first hour was spent in thawing ; bow they lay shivering, their frozen socks spread across their chests, until their clothes gradually became wet and soft, and eventually com- fortable and warm. It was indeed a damp bed to sleep in. Yet they never caught a cold ; and, mark this, for it is very important, with the exception of Nansen's brief attack of lumbago, their health did not suffer in any way from the exposure. It may be said they were all strong men, marvellously hardy ; they were able to withstand the cold. But what was the fact ? Directly they reached civilisation they all caught cold. Nansen's own statement to the writer was :—" There is of course no doubt that cold is an infectious disease. We bad none during our journey, and we all got it (very badly, too) at the very moment we reached Norway." And this seems to be the universal experience of Arctic explorers. The members of the Jackson- Harmaworth Expedition, who stayed for three years in Franz Josef Land, never once suffered from colds. Yet they, too, underwent at times great exposure. The Arctic summer was exceedingly damp,—cold, mist-laden east winds prevailing. Wet feet were the rule, "a chronic experience." "On one occasion six of us were exposed to a gale in a boat for three days and nights, when we were all drenched to the skin with rain and spray ; and when we arrived on land, being un- able on account of the inclement weather and want of drift or other wood to light a fire, we had to remain in our wet clothes, and practically to let them dry upon our bodies, yet none of us took cold." It is noteworthy that the only ill effects ever felt were slight twinges of rheumatism, ex- perienced by two or three only, and quite of a fleeting nature. Indeed, their doctor declares that none of these men were the worse for their long sojourn in those Northern regions, while some at least were the better for it. Yet they also, with only two exceptions, suffered from severe Golds directly they reached civilisation.

Very interesting, too, is Sir Martin Conway's account of his experiences. For two months, when exploring Spitz- bergen, he and his four comrades were exposed to consider- able privations, were almost constantly wet through, and frequently had to sleep in their wet clothes; yet their health never suffered in any way from this. But at the end of that time they went down to Androe's settlement on the coast, where some forty men were living, and where, moreover, there was almost constant intercourse with the mainland. Within two days of their arrival Conway and his companions all developed violent colds. Still more striking were his ex- periences in the Himalayas. While among the mountains, he and his men, notwithstanding great exposure, never caught a cold. They even visited native villages without doing so. But once they came down to a village where there was a small European settlement having communication with the outside world,—one white man had come up three days previously. There Conway and his men all, without exception, took bad colds, which developed, he thinks, in about a couple of days. The present writer has heard too, but has been unable to verify the fact, that the men at the observatory on the top of Ben Nevis, often living in the midst of cloud and rain and snow, never suffer from colds ; but that whenever they descend to inhabited regions they invariably catch severe ones.

Then there is the classical instance of the St. Kilda cold. On that rocky, lonely island, lying some forty miles beyond the Western Hebrides, there are nigh upon a hundred inhabitants, who keep a few sheep and cows, cultivate some forty acres, and collect the eggs, feathers, and young of the numerous sea-fowl. Their coast is so precipitous, and their seas are so stormy, that for eight months out of the twelve they are practically inaccessible. Formerly they were visited only once a year by a ship from the mainland. Now several call there during the summer, including excursion steamers from Liverpool and Glasgow. The curious point is that whenever a ship reaches the island all the inhabitants, including the very infants at the breast, are seized with a cold. This fact has been known for nearly two hundred years, and greatly interested Dr. Johnson when be and Boswell were making their famous tour of the Hebrides. He was very sceptical about it, saying that the evidence was not adequate to the improbability of the thing. But he praised the Rev. Mr. Macaulay for putting it in his book, declaring that it was courageous of him to tell a fact, however strange, if he him- self believed it. He said that if a physician, rather disposed to be incredulous, should go to St. Kilda and report the fact, he would begin to look about him. When told that it was annually proved by MacLeod's steward, on whose arrival all the inhabitants caught cold, he jocularly remarked : "The steward comes to demand something of them, and so they fall a-coughing."

The problem of this St. Kilda cold long puzzled learned men, who seem never to have suspected the simple explana- tion of the mystery. One solution suggested was that the steward always brought whisky with him, and that it was the intemperance and jollity which took place on the occasion which caused the epidemic. Another explanation was that a ship could only reach the island from the mainland when the

wind was from the north-east. "The wind, not the strangers, caused the cold." This cold is still characteristic of the island, and is called by the inhabits 'a the " strangers' cold."

On the arrival of the first stean s every summer all the island folk fall victims; afterwards many of them escape.

The attack lasts eight or ten days, and is often accom- panied by bronchial catarrh. The inhabitants affirm that if the ship comes from Liverpool or Glasgow the cold they catch is more severe than if it comes from the Hebrides.

All these instances, and there are many such, go to show that a cold is an infectious disease, prevalent widely, no doubt, but only where man, perhaps only where civilised man, exists. Also that in some favoured spots, as in St. Kilda, the disease, when it has been introduced, rapidly

becomes extinct. This is known to be the case on sailing

vessels during a long voyage, and it is one of the reasons why such a voyage is often beneficial to patients suffering from consumption, who are so sadly liable, after any catarrhal attack, to lose the ground they have been slowly gaining. It would seem, too, that the infection is generally carried by human agency; and it is noteworthy that some, at least, of every ship's crew or passengers must take it with them when they go aboard, for apparently every ship which reaches St.

Kilda brings the cold. Probably those who carry it are often

quite unconscious that they have anything wrong with them, the disease being, as it were, latent. It would seem, too, that practically all human beings, irrespective of age or sex, and even when in good health, are highly susceptible to colds, if they have been for some time free from them, and so have lost immunity.

Additional evidence that colds are infectious is furnished by what we observe among our domestic animals. Cats seem to be specially susceptible. Probably they often bring home from their nocturnal rambles those mysterious catarrhal attacks which so rapidly run through the house. It is an old saying, " The cat is sneezing, we shall all have colds."

Sheep, too, are liable ; a whole flock may suffer, and may show that curious eruption round the lips (herpes labiaUs),

which we all know only too well as one of the most unpleasant

accompaniments of a bad cold in the head. On the Austra- lian sheep runs, when the shearing season comes round, the

men who congregate at the sheds are frequently smitten with an illness of a catarrhal nature, which rapidly takes bold of them, and often affects some ninety per cent. Sometimes it becomes very serious, and may even develop into a fatal pneumonia. To all appearance it is caught from the sheep.

Horses, too, are very subject to nasal catarrh, and it is a widely prevalent belief among coachmen that if a horse goes into a fresh stable, and especially if a horse which has been out at grass goes into a stable with other horses, it will be moat likely to develop a cold. So, too, it is noticed, will horses bought at a fair, and this is popularly attributed to the draughts to which they have been exposed. As it is admitted, however, that any other horses which may have been in the stable generally catch this cold from the new- comer, surely it is more reasonable to suppose that the latter has in like manner received the infection from some of its neighbours while on sale. A medical friend of the writer's lately made an interesting experiment. He has two horses,

and has been in the habit of turning one out for the summer months. When he brought it in again for the winter it used

invariably to develop a severe cold. Coachmen will tell you

that this is due to the unaccustomed warmth of the stable, which makes the animal " nesh." Last year, however, before

bringing in his horse, the doctor had his stable thoroughly disinfected and lime-washed, and put no other horse into it. The one which came in from grass then remained perfectly free from any symptoms of catarrh.

All this evidence seems to force us to the conclusion that a cold is a specific infectious disease, and that without the possibility of infection it is impossible to catch it. That is to say that it is due to a micro-organism, and that without the presence of this micro-organism the disease cannot be con- tracted, be the exposure what it may. What is the bearing of this belief ? Is it of any importance to us, if true it be, to recognise its truth ? Contrast it for a moment with the commonly accepted theory, which may be roughly stated as follows. First, that the greater number of illnesses begin with a cold. This is more or less correct. Secondly, that all colds

must necessarily be due to exposure of some kind, to draughts, damp, cold, or wet, though this exposure may be so slight that the sufferers are often quite unconscious of it, and say : " I am sure I don't know how I have taken cold." The prac- tical result of this theory is that, in their fear of these unrecognised exposures, people are apt to take more and more care of themselves,—in other words, to coddle more and more. This treatment tends to make them. more and more delicate; less and less able to withstand exposure ; more and more sensitive to the depressing effects of cold; less and less capable of reacting healthily against it ; and, what is far worse, more and more afraid of fresh air and good ventila- tion. (In the back-blocks of Australia, the writer has actually known a monthly nurse, strong in the consciousness of unquestioned wisdom, and armed by the authority of estab- lished custom, even when the thermometer stood at ninety in the shade, refuse to open the window, lest her patient should take cold.) And this coddling treatment, when it is applied to children, is especially injurious, causing them to grow up delicate instead of sturdy and strong, and in the long- run tending to undermine the robust health and hardi- hood of our English race. Now, if this commonly accepted theory is, after all, an erroneous one ; if all this over-carefulness is not only injurious in many ways, but is altogether useless as a precautionary measure—given ex- posure to infection which must sooner or later be incurred— then surely it is important that we as a nation should give up our traditional belief, howsoever much we may have cherished it. If the alternative theory, that of infection, be the true one, and if it be frankly accepted, many consequences must follow, which it is impossible to consider here. But one thought forces itself upon us. If it he true that exposure is not the direct cause of the disease ; if, as seems probable, it only acts by lowering our vitality, and so enabling the germs to get a foothold, surely the more we become inured to such exposure the less likely will it be to affect us in this way, —a thought which, if acted upon, would go far towards pre- serving that hardiness which is so characteristic of our nation, which would prove as effective a protection against cold as against other enemies.

May we hope for anything further P Shall we ever be able to avoid colds altogether ? Probably we shall ; probably ere long our bacteriologists, having discovered the hostile microbe, having learnt his habits, traced his life history, and tracked him to his lair, will be able to show us how we can get the better of our foe, so that in the oft-recurring struggle he, not we. will succumb, and we shall eoon cease to fear him. Hoc