CATCHING COLD. 37 i 



In the course of my experiments, whenever I have fed my cold 

 as far as I wished or dared to go, I have, in every instance, ban- 

 ished the disease by entirely abstaining from food for a time ; I have 

 never known this remedy (if applied at the very onset) to fail of 

 "breaking up" a common cold in twenty-four to forty- eight hours, 

 whatever the age, sex, or occupation of the patient. However we 

 may differ as to the origin of the disorder, whenever I can prevail 

 upon a sufferer to try this remedy, we come to be of one opinion as to 

 what will most surely and speedily " cure " it. 



Of course the size of the " dose " must bear some relation to the 

 severity of the case : * On the first appearance of the disease the 

 symptoms of a slight cold, so familiar to all skipping a single meal, in 

 the case of a person who takes but two meals a day habitually, or two 

 meals, in the case of a three-mealer, will sometimes suffice, if the suc- 

 ceeding meals be very moderate ones. I have usually, in my experimen- 

 tation, been satisfied to "turn " at the " one-meal buoy," not often being 

 obliged to abstain longer than twenty-four hours. When, however, I 

 have chosen to prolong the experiment by continuing to eat heartily, 

 as is the custom with people in general at such times, I have found 

 my experience identical with theirs : the symptoms would increase in 

 severity, and to nasal catarrh, headache, slight feverishness, and lan- 

 guor, would be added sore-throat, perhaps, with pressure at the lungs, 

 hoarseness, increased fever, and entire indisposition for exertion. In 

 this case, two, perhaps three days' fasting would be required, with a 

 little extra sponging of the skin, to completely restore the balance. 

 Out-door air is desirable, and when not demanding too great effort 

 exercise. Air-baths, when there is much feverishness of the skin, are 

 comforting and curative. The practice of holding doicn the bed- 

 clothes, in case of fever and delirium, lest the burning body " catch 

 cold," and of stinting the supply of fresh air for the same reason, is 

 no less irrational than to withhold water or to offer food. 



Years of study and observation have forced me to the conclusion 

 that the disease which manifests the symptoms popularly supposed to 

 indicate that a cold has been caught is to all intents and purposes a 



* In the " Boston Journal of Chemistry," February, 1882, I reported a case of con- 

 sumption (the patient, seventy years old, had been declining for three years, and was 

 helpless in bed) cured by a forty-three days' fast. He had been a great sufferer ; but his 

 cough and pains gradually disappeared during the first two weeks. Within four months 

 thereafter, on a fruit-and-bread diet, he had regained his normal weight and strength. 



A bad case of malarial fever, the past summer, yielded to a twelve days' fast, and 

 nothing else. Another patient suffering from rheumatism, with night-sweats, fasted thir- 

 teen days, obtaining great relief. His night-sweats ceased the fourth day. 



Dr. Wood, Professor of Chemistry in Bishop's College, Montreal, reports for the 

 Canada " Medical Record " forty-seven cases of acute articular rheumatism cured by fast- 

 ing time required, from four to eight days and a recent letter assures me that this 

 remedy is still successful with him. He consequently has come to regard rheumatism as 

 " a phase of indigestion." 



