Even during slight illness a patient should receive the daily care already described, and should be made as comfortable as possible. As in any illness, sponging and alcohol rubs are refreshing. An ice bag or cold compress may relieve headache, and hot applications or a cold compress on the throat are often soothing. The throat may be gargled with a solution of one teaspoonful of common salt dissolved in a pint of boiled water. If the patient perspires profusely he should be rubbed with a towel until dry, and provided with fresh warm, night clothes. An alcohol rub may well follow. It is most unwise for a patient who is perspiring freely to get up in a cold room and attend to himself. Common colds are far more serious than they are usually supposed to be. "More people suffer from common colds than from any other single ailment.... Could the sum total of suffering, inconvenience, sequelæ, and economic loss resulting from common colds be obtained, it would at once promote these infections from the trivial into the rank of the serious diseases.... Colds are contracted from other persons having colds, just as diphtheria is contracted from diphtheria. Arctic explorers exposed to all the conditions ordinarily supposed to produce colds do not suffer from these ailments until they return to civilization and become infected by contact with their fellowmen.... While common colds are never fatal, the complications and sequelæ are serious. These are rheumatic fever, pneumonia, sinusitis, nephritis, and a depressed vitality which favors other infections and hastens the progress of organic diseases. "Common colds are perhaps most contagious during the early stages. If persons isolate themselves by remaining in bed during the first three days of a cold, they would not only benefit themselves, but would largely prevent the spread of the infection. The contagiousness and severity of colds differ in different epidemics and in different seasons of the year, depending upon the particular micro-organism involved and other factors not well understood. "PREVENTION.--The prevention of colds consists, first in avoiding the infection, and, secondly, in guarding against the predisposing causes. Contact should be avoided with persons who have colds, especially in street cars, offices, and other poorly ventilated spaces where the risk of persons coughing or sneezing directly in one's face is imminent. Contact with the infection may further be guarded against by a careful self-education in sanitary habits and cleanliness, based upon the modern conception of contact infection.