How to Cure a Catarrh and Colds ( Early 20th century)

Fallacies about Colds and Catarrh

We shall never understand the real nature of a cold or of catarrh until we get away from orthodox medical ideas. The common phrase, ‘I’ve caught a bad cold’ is thoroughly misleading. For this term implies that the ‘cold’ has come from without, and that it has been taken from someone else by infection. There are certain factors which give an air of plausibility to the theory of infection. For example, one member of a family starts with a cold, and the cold sometimes then goes through the house, all the other members of the family having it in turn. But this is by no means conclusive proof that the cold has been conveyed to the others by infection. It must be remembered that the whole family are very probably living under very similar conditions as to faulty diet, ventilation (or rather the lack of it), inadequate bathing, and unhygienic living generally. And it is these conditions that lay the foundations of colds, not the transfer of germs from one person to another.

Primary Causes

When treated by Nature Cure methods, catarrh cases in every instance have been found to have present one or more of the following basic factors:

1. A clogging mucus-forming dietary
2. Over-eating
3. An excess of protein, sugar and starch, or fat
4. Insufficient cleansing and acid-neutralising foods and drinks
5. Constipation
6. Lowered vitality, especially of the lining membranes of the nose and throat
7. Ill-ventilated, overheated and dusty rooms
8. Excessive indulgence in alcohol and tobacco
9. Worry and wrong mental conditions which lower the vitality and natural resistance of the body

We are now beginning to realise that catarrh is not quite so simple a matter as catching a germ, or being exposed to wet weather.

We eat our colds. We accumulate, by our shabby treatment of our bodies, filth and waste and debris within us, until, at length Nature has set to work to clear out the rubbish. This she does by means of the mild feverish process we call a cold, or by the slower, more latent method of chronic catarrh.