Rest, Not Cathartics, Best Cure For Common Cold, Arlie V. Bock Claims

"Nothing but rest will defeat the common cold," Arlie V. Bock, Henry K. Oliver Professor of Hygiene, stated last night.

According to Bock, medicine is of no help to the man with a cold. Cathartics and vaccines can do no more than bring about a favorable psychological reaction on the part of the patient.

"Straight to Bed"

"It is best," he said, "to go straight to bed when a cold is coming on. In so doing a student does not, in the long run, get so far behind in his work as he does when he fights the cold and attempts to keep up on his activities."

Fatigue, Bock believes, is the cause of over 90 per cent of all colds, and a cold caused by fatigue generally lasts much longer than do those which come about during an epidemic.

Getting to bed on the first sign of a cold, Bock said, usually gives the patient a chance of being altogether better within three days. Failing to get to bed, however, often results in a week or ten days of affliction in addition to about three weeks of a bad cough.

A man with a cold, Bock stated, should sleep in a room in which there is warm, circulating air. Trying to "sweat out a cold" by using more blankets than are necessary does "no good at all."