The Common Cold

The common cold is a universal pest. Science has not been able to isolate the microbe causing it, nor produce a specific cure. Some individuals are little affected by an attack, others are very ill. All are susceptible, apparently, to a more or less degree. Children particularly are most susceptible, and those who are made especially ill by cold attacks usually contract any other childhood disease with great ease, and have the most severe cases.

We all recall the children who were “tough,” who were poorly dressed, and (in our estimation poorly nourished), who seemed never to be ill. They had good teeth, and pugnacious dispositions.

And we all recall the delicate offspring of the “well-to-do”, who were always “catching something”, timid of disposition, and whose teeth were so bad as to cause deformities of development.

We know today that VITAMINS spell the difference between these two classes of children. The “poor” child was almost always hungry, ate anything it found of a vegetable or fruit nature immediately in the raw, and got a fair supply of vitamins. The well-to-do child never was hungry, ate only cooked and refined food products, probably never even tasted a raw potato or carrot, was indoors a greater percentage of the time, especially in the fall and spring (to prevent exposure to inclement weather), and deprived of vitamins at every turn.

To quote Dr. Quigley:

“School children are often found with a nervous condition and anemia, gum infection and decayed teeth, a lack of appetite and constipation, a latent tuberculosis, bow-legs or knock-knees, and eye defects necessitating the wearing of glasses. This means a starvation for Vitamin A (eye disease), for Vitamin D (tuberculosis and rickets), for Vitamin C (mouth scurvy), and Vitamin B (constipation, nervousness, lack of appetite and anemia)…The very great prevalence of these deficiency disorders among school children indicates that unless some radical change is made the next generation will carry these diseases to a greater degree. It indicates a tendency toward race degeneration.” (Notes on Vitamins & Diet, Page 98.)

There is little question but that the “flu” epidemic of 1918 was primarily due vitamin deficiency, brought about by the scarcity of butter, and other high vitamin foods, that were being shipped to Europe while we used substitutes.

Vitamins cannot prevent you from contracting a cold. But if your diet has been low in these essential elements, such a microbic invasion will not be resisted in a normal degree, and you may be quite ill, with a temperature for several days.

The cold attack will leave you in a susceptible condition to contract some other infective disease–pneumonia, tuberculosis, any of the children’s diseases (measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc.) if you are not immune to them because of a previous attack.

This susceptibility is purely due to the further depletion of your vitamin reserves, because of the cold.

Vitamins A, B, C and D are all important in this respect. If a concentrate of these vitamins is taken (such as “Catalyn”) at the onset of a cold, it will in most cases be prevented from developing, and will run its course in a very mild form. Several days are required for the body to develop its defensive principles (developing an immunity to specific microbe), and it is during this time that the vitamin supply is important. This immunity only lasts for a few weeks, during which time you cannot catch another cold from this same kind of germ, but of course it is well known that there are several varieties of these.

It will be seen that the use of “Catalyn” will be of utmost benefit in dealing with any infective process. It supplies, as it were, the ammunition for the defensive processes of nature.

The use of vitamin preparations has not, in the past, offered much encouraging evidence of merit as remedies or preventives for colds. The use of viosterol, and preparations of A and D obtained from fish oils has been overdone, as is usual with any new and incomplete scientific discovery. We discover that vitamins are necessary, that their deficiency is the cause of most human pathology, then we immediately overdose ourselves with such vitamin preparations as are available, which in this case affords us disappointing results, and even does harm (viosterol in overdose is a poison).

We are just beginning to realize that we must make use of all the vitamins in a reasonably normal proportion, to get the results we seek. These vitamins act cooperatively (any table of deficiency consequences show that most symptoms that develop are present in more than one single vitamin deficiency), and that as with other food materials (proteins, fats and carbohydrates), there is some “balanced” ratio that is best.

“Catalyn” is an attempt to supply this ratio.

In the development and transmission of microbic life in victims of low resistance the germs often develop great virulence. This was the case in the 1918 “flu” epidemic. They are then able to produce the disease in others who ordinarily would be resistant.

It appears probable, in view of our four years’ experience with “Catalyn” that seventy-five per cent of the physical suffering as well as most of the economic loss due to the common cold can be eliminated when this material becomes available to all who need it.