Penny received a rather unintended and unwanted present for Christmas: her first cold. It was a very long week and a half, with a very crabby baby, but she seems to have come out stronger in the end. She is now starting to roll over onto her side, which is hopefully an exciting preview of front-to-back or back-to-front rolling. Unfortunately, I did not come out so well after her ordeal. I now have the wretched cold.

The OED first records cold (an acute and self-limited episode of catarrhal illness of the upper respiratory tract, often with sneezing, running of the eyes, sore throat, cough, and slight fever, now known to be caused by any of numerous viruses") in the 14th century. It became common a little later, in the 18th century. My good man Johnson is quoted in the cold entry, with a line from his 154th Rambler: "All whom I entreat to sing are troubled with colds."

Johnson includes the sickness as the 3rd definition of cold in his own dictionary:

>A disease caused by cold; the obstruction of perspiration.

What disease hast thou? ——
A whorson cold, sir; a cough. Shakesp. Henry IV. p. 2.

Let no ungentle cold destroy
All taste we have of heav'nly joy. Roscommon.

Those rains, so covering the earth, might providentially contribute to the disruption of it, by stopping all the pores, and all evaporation, which would make the vapours within struggle violently, as we get a fever by a cold. Burnet.

In Johnson's time, a cold was believed to be caused by blocked pores - the bodily humors became unbalanced as sweat was unable to escape. The 1919 World Book gives another potential cause: "Intemperance, constipation and other unhygienic habits of living predispose one to colds, for when the body resistance is weakened disease germs more easily affect the mucous membranes." (Vol. 3, p. 1469) The entry reminds the reader that quick treatment is important to prevent more serious problems, and unstopping the bowels (proper hygiene!) is crucial in treating a cold: "Rest in bed with little food, hot foot-baths and hot drinks and the use of a purgative will be found helpful." The encyclopedia's advice for hardening the body to be resistant to colds is contrary to that of the German grandmother, who fears drafts to death: "The practice of taking cold baths, sleeping with the windows wide open and taking plenty of exercise tend to keep the body in a resistant condition."

Later reference works are, of course, a bit more scientific. The 1965 Encyclopædia Britannica is incredibly statistical in its entry for cold, common (which introduced me to the wonderful word mucopurulent, or "consisting of mucus and pus"), consisting all sorts of numerical facts: according to the American Institute of Public Opinion, 1 in 7 Americans had a cold the 1st week of November (Vol. 6, pp. 41-42). The average person has 2-3 colds a year. The article also mentions the studies conducted by the Common Cold Research Unit at Salisbury, England, where "normal volunteers, students and others are housed in pairs under conditions of isolation from other people" where they are "subjected to experiment, usually by intranasal instillation of cold virus." There are many other fascinating facts; for instance, cold viruses can be "preserved for years at -76° C in dry ice." Despite their name, "experiments have been carried out in which human subjects have been chilled by standing about in drafts in wet bathing suits, by wearing wet socks, by going for walks in the rain; yet no colds were induced nor were the subjects abnormally susceptible to administration of small doses of common cold virus." (I sure hope they were paid well.)

Basically, the cold doesn't cause colds, people do. Want to avoid the cold? Become a hermit. Genetics also seem to play a role: "studies from Cornell university (Ithaca, NY) indicated that 25% of the students had approximately 75% of the colds in that institution." Another helpful tip is to not pluck nose hairs, as these unsightly "natural defenses" aid in keeping the cold virus out of the nose (p. 43). I appreciate the Britannica's advice concerning cold treatments (including vitamins and diet changes) and their general ineffectiveness: "Most preparations widely utilized for cold treatment are of no more value than sugar tablets. Controlled studies have shown that there is no justification for the use of antihistamine drugs, various preparations of the sulfonamides, penicillin or other antibiotics. [...] if these drugs are used for minor infections, such as colds, there may develop in the nose and throat strains of germs that are resistant to them; they become valueless for the treatment of severe infections to which these germs may give rise." At the same time, however, it is a bit depressing that this information has been around for over 50 years and is still ignored by a great number (if not the majority) of the populace.