Above all, his supper should be light; as small posset, or water-gruel sweetened with honey, and a little toasted bread in it. If honey should disagree with the stomach, the gruel may be sweetened with treacle or coarse sugar, and sharpened with the jelly of currants. Those who have been accustomed to generous liquors may take wine-whey instead of gruel, which may be sweetened as above. The patient ought to lie longer than usual a-bed, and to encourage a gentle sweat, which is easily brought on towards morning, by drinking tea, or any kind of warm diluting liquor. I have often known this practice carry off a cold in one day, which in all probability, had it been neglected, would have cost the patient his life, or have confined him for some months. Would people sacrifice a little time to ease and warmth, and practice a moderate degree of abstinence when the first symptoms of a cold appear, we have reason to believe, that most of the bad effects which flow from an obstructed perspiration might be prevented. But, after the disease has gathered strength by delay, all attempts to remove it often prove vain. A pleurisy, a peripneumony, or a fatal consumption of the lungs, are the common effects of colds which have either been totally neglected or treated improperly. Many attempt to cure a cold, by getting drunk. But this, to say no worse of it, is a very hazardous experiment. No doubt it may sometimes succeed, by suddenly restoring the perspiration; but when there is any degree of inflammation, which is frequently the case, strong liquors, instead of removing the malady, will increase it. By this means a common cold may be converted into an inflammatory fever. When those who labour for their daily bread have the misfortune to catch cold, they cannot afford to lose a day or two, in order to keep themselves warm, and take a little medicine; by which means the disorder is often so aggravated as to confine them for a long time, or even to render them ever after unable to sustain hard labour. But even such of the labouring poor as can afford to take care of themselves, are often too hardy to do it; they affect to despise colds, and as long as they can crawl about, scorn to be confined by what they call a _common cold_. Hence it is, that colds destroy such numbers of mankind. Like an enemy despised, they gather strength from delay, till at length they become invincible. We often see this verified in travellers, who, rather than lose a day in the prosecution of their business, throw away their lives by pursuing their journey, even in the severest weather, with this disease upon them.