Evening star., 1933-01-13
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRACEWELL.

These bodies might have come down
| in the germ plasm generation after
generation, having been built up CEN
turies ago by a race that conquered
colds. How these anti-bodies were
transmitted to just this one person, GEN.
turies later, and to none other, would
prove another of the unsolved mysteries
of science.
Yet here the man stands. free from
coles, although he violates most of the
so-called rules of hygiene, and does not
know enough about the remainder to
know whether or not he follows them.
Nor, indeed, has he any interest in
any of them either to observe them
or to break them.
His comparative freedom from colds
most often fails to impress him in any
way, for he Is quite used to it. and
what man Is used to mostly fails to
interest him to any great degree.
In many cases he rather prides him
self upon being ignorant of all things
medical or pseudo-medical. He loftily
says, if he can be induced to say any,
thing, that he leaves such matters to
the physician.
The physician, In all likelihood,
would wish that he didn't, that he
would show an intelligent interest in
health, and not wait until disease
strikes him.
For the interesting thing is that this
same man who is abnormally free from
colds and similar ailments may be a
victim of any one or more of num-
Der of other disorders.
Or is he?
Here again only intelligent observa-
ton, on scientific scale, could &C
tually settle the question.
1t IS no small one.
Do the apparent anti-hodies. the pro-
tective elements in his system, as the
layman believes, serve to protect him
from other diseases, too?
Can such elements be isolated,
named, and then be introduced into
the blood streams of persons who need
them?
This gets dangerously near to the
subject of vitamins, but here it is nee
essary to mention again the plain fact
that most of the cold-free persons are
ruthlessly uninterested in vitamins or
any other health factors, and that, for
the most part, they do not observe the
one else. In fact, as previously stated,
many of them would be regarded by
the average lay observer as persons
who are in fact unhealthy, with the
one exception of being free from the
common cold.
Here again 1t would be dangerous to
rush into the belief that this lack of
intelligent curiosity on the part of such
persons is a victory for common sense,
or the basic idea that one is better off
If he does not concern himself with
his own health.
This queer idea, once very popular.
has received some solid shots during re-
cent years, not only from the medical
profession itself, but also from certain
famous writers, who have pointed out
in popular style the CeSirability of
every one knowing few elemental
points about the physical body.
Thousands Of years ago the Psalm
ist wondered over the mysterious con-
struction of the body Today the
hardest scientists, confronted with the
everyday mystery of the so-called STA
BILE states" of the body, wonder no less
devoutly than he.
Perhaps there is one hygienic factor,
long disregarded, which the average
cold-free persons-we almost had called
him the normal cold-free person-in-
corporates into his daily life habits.
1t may be that it is some simple
thing so apparent to all that no one
at all has ever noticed it!
Such strange things have happened,
and might well happen here, for colds
are so common and so easily disregard
ed by so many who possess the power
to resist them, as they say, that we are
all Of us, doctors and patients alike,
in danger of not being able to see the
cold for the sneezes.