Have I Regressed To My Childhood?
Growing up in the early 1950s in London, I wasn’t the healthiest of children.
- At some time most winters, I would have several weeks off school with a severe cold with extras.
- I can remember my mother cutting up old sheets for hankerchiefs.
- These would be boiled after use in a large saucepan on the gas cooker.
- I would cough all night and a good part of the day.
- I would inhale steam from a large jug of hot water and Friar’s Balsam.
Dr. Egerton White was always round our house.
Things improved towards the end of the 1950s.
- The passing of the Clean Air Act in 1956.
- I would be given penicillin which seemed to help. Naughty! Naughty!
- At weekends we’d go to Felixstowe.
What finally improved my health was going to Liverpool University.
Now over fifty years later, I’ve got a cold like I had in the 1950s.
- I can’t stop coughing for more than ten or twenty minutes.
- Nothing seems to work to stop the cough!
- It’s gone on for eight days now!
- I’m not getting much sleep.
Could the pollution from all the diesel vehicles be the key?
Are We Finally Beating the Common Cold?
There are two stories on colds and viruses, today, that give a cause for optimism in our long search for a cure for the common cold.
One says that the Medical Research Council has made a breakthrough in the understanding of how viruses work. The other says those who exercise regularly are less likely to get colds.
This is all good stuff, that might lead to something really concrete in the future.
It’s at times like this that I get optimistic.
The Anonymous Widower 