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Show ' New Method for Cold Prevention Mo?;: P'jople believe that the only v:iy to !?ct rid of a cold is ;o vvfi-t it out. A famous doctor one- .said that a cold could be ' oared in 14 days with top medical med-ical therapy, or that one could do without medicine and wait 14 I days for nature to cure it. Up until now, that has been gen- i orally true. But this year it can be different. dif-ferent. It is now possible -to ' kill off a cold before it has - a rhance to get started. This is done by taking an anti-histamine pill when you feel the first sign coming on. The anti-histamine method of cold prevention was ' developed by the Navy Medical Medi-cal Department during the war. . The navy administered an anti- histamine drug for colds in extensive ex-tensive clinical tests. After careful care-ful tabulation of results, it announced that 90 per cent of I all cases where treatment was begun immediately after the first symptoms were felt, the in- , cipientcold was stopped. In those cases where colds were well established, es-tablished, use of the drug pro- ; duced marked relief of symptoms, symp-toms, and reduced sneezing and j mucous secretion, thus cutting I contagion. The new ingredient in the anti-cold treatment is a rather fabulous young drug known as an anti-histamine. It is one of a group originally produced for the treatment of hay fever and other conditions generally classified clas-sified as allergies. They were called anti-histamine because they neutralize or suppress histamine, his-tamine, a chemical released in the body when tissue is damaged dam-aged or infection present. The release of too much histamine in the body produces swelling and discharge from tissue cells. When this happens you may ; have hay fever, asthma, or hives. Or, as scientists have now demonstrated, de-monstrated, you may have a common cold. The symptoms of nasal allergy and a cold are about the same. The similarity between allergies aller-gies and colds caused doctors to speculate on the possibility of applying an anti-histamine to colds. If an anti-histamine 'would work on various allergies, Why wouldn't it work on colds? The idea was given a tryout at the cold clinic of the U. S. Naval Hospital, Great Lakes, 111., under the direction of Capt. John M. Brewster. Navy person s' -, " mpr A Medical drawing shows the normal appearance of the sidewalls of the nassal cavity when free of a cold infection or allergy -swolle C tissue, for which histamine is thought to be responsible. ::mmmm :!fmMmi$ mmfM Same area when cold infected. Enlarged and inflamed membranes mem-branes choke the passages, producing pain, stuffiness, and mucous secretion, in which histamine is found. Anti-histaminics, such as Caubren Compound, counteract the histamine, and reduce both mucous secretion and swelling. nel who reported cold symptoms were treated with an anti-hista-minic drug. As the experiment proceeded, it soon became clear that the doctors had hit upon a major development. The pill with its anti-histamine turned the trick in an overwhelming majority major-ity of cases. The only basic proviso pro-viso was that the cold had to be caught before it really took hold, although even in advanced cases it was found that the drug cut down both the severity and the duration of colds. This winter the anti-histamine treatment of the common cold has been made available to the general public. Produced in tablet tab-let form as Caubren, the drug, can be generally obtained on a doctor's prescription. |