Pinedale Roundup

MORE ABOUT "COLDS" CAUSES AND CURES

"There may be some truth in what you say about the cause of colds," says a lady in commenting on my last article, "but I know I caught 'an awful cold' from sitting in a draft. The fact that the cold followed immediately after the exposure was entirely satisfactory proof to this lady that the exposure caused the cold, but an unbiased mind could hardly accept this as proof unless the same effect should follow in every similar exposure, or at least in a majority of cases. It would likewise be hard to prove that the cold was not caused by the draft.

In the matter of cures for colds and other ailments, there are no doubt remedies and treatments that are effective in relieving or even curing a cold. But when the cold is a discharge of impurities from the system through the respiratory organs there is good reason to doubt the advisability of checking the discharge, or to consider the stopping of the discharge as a cure.

The better treatment would seem to be something that would increase the discharge until the impurities were removed.

We often hear of "sure cures" for certain ailments, and investigation of some of these shows that there is more or less superstition connected with cures, as well as causes of these ailments.

"Cure superstitions," it seems, is not confined to the methods of the "medicine men" of the Indians, the rabbit foot of the negro, or the sack of asafetida that parents used to insist on their children wearing suspended around their necks to ward off disease. A few experiences with "sure cures" are given, following to illustrate the point that we can not always be sure about a cure.

About 15 years ago I had a severe siege of rheumatism. Tried various remedies, including a treatment under a doctor at the hospital. Returned home from the hospital much benefitted but in a few days it was as bad as ever. Sent for a remedy that came to my notice as a sure cure for rheumatism in any form or any degree of severity. Sent for it and began getting better very soon after starting the treatment. Trouble had about disappeared after taking first bottle. Took a second bottle to make sure. No trace of rheumatism after this for four years. Cure was complete.

Four years after the above related experience, after I had come to Pinedale, I had another attack of rheumatism which started while I was camped at Surveyor park getting out wood. Snow was about a foot deep and I worked for several days in the snow, often with wet feet. Disease affected me mainly in right leg. Hard to get back and forth from camp to work. For a few days after coming home continued to pain and was very sore. A friend recommended oil as a sure cure. I had no faith in anything applied externally as a cure for the trouble that was undoubtedly a systemic derangement, but as I could not get the remedy that had worked wonders in curing me in the former attack, I got a bottle of the oil thinking that its application might relieve the pain, and help in that way while I was waiting for the other remedy to come. Took the bottle home but for some reason did not apply it that night. Next day the pain was not very noticeable and I did not use the oil that day. The pains and soreness left me and in three days from the time I got the oil there was no trace of the trouble left. The cure was complete, and the trouble has never returned, although I had never opened the bottle.

How could I know that the remedy used in the first case was the means of cure? Perhaps it would have been the same if I had not opened that bottle. And in the second case, if I had begun using the oil when I got it, wouldn't it look like a sure thing that the oil was the means of cure?

Doctors have related experiences of giving harmless mixtures that would have no more effect than so much water to patients who insisted that they had certain ailments and needed medicine. These usually recovered and laid it to the medicine they took.

One more personal experience in this connection: Last September, I began to have some stomach trouble of a nature that greatly puzzled me, as I had never before had anything like it. No imagination about it, either, for there were spells of severe pain. I had been riding myself on my success in overcoming appendicitis, entirely, in the past three years by following a rational diet; and this following advice from a physician that an operation to remove the appendix would be necessary. I decided to consult the local doctor. Didn't find him at home that day and didn't get to see him the next day. The trouble eased up then and I didn't consult the doctor. It left me just as completely as I could have hoped it would if I had gotten medicine from the doctor and taken it as directed. Another complete cure, but this time I had nothing to attribute the cure to - not even a bottle of unopened medicine.

To those who would attribute the cause of the second attack of rheumatism mentioned above to exposure in the snow and getting feet wet, I must say that it seems unreasonable to consider that the cause in view of the fact that the former attack came on while I was teaching school and when I had not been exposed to cold or bad weather; and the fact that for several winters following that I was more exposed to bad weather, snow, wind and dampness than at that time with no colds or rheumatism resulting.

(In the next and final installment of this series some prescriptions and treatment will be given from good medical authority for appendicitis, influenza, ordinary colds, and other diseases.)