Passage2Thecommoncoldistheworl-考网

Passage 2

The common cold is the world′ s most widespread illness, which is plague that flesh receives.

The most widespread fallacy of all is that colds caused by cold. They are not. They are causedby viruses passing on from person to person. You catch a cold by coming into contact, directly orindirectly, with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, it would be reasonable to expectthe Eskimos to suffer from them forever. But they do not. And in isolated arctic regions explorershave reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from theoutside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.

During the First World War soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches, cold and wet,showed no increased tendency to catch colds.

In the Second World War prisoners at the notorious Auschwitz concentration camp, naked andstarving, were astonished to find that they seldom had colds. At the Common Cold Research Unit inEngland, volunteers took part in Experiments in which they gave themselves to the discomforts ofbeing cold and wet for long stretches of time. After taking hot baths, they put on bathing suits,allowed themselves to be with cold water, and then stood about dripping wet in drafty room. Somewore wet socks all day while others exercised in the rain until close to exhaustion. Not one of thevolunteers came down with a cold unless a cold virus was actually dropped in his nose.

If, then, cold and wet have nothing to do with catching colds, why are they more frequent in thewinter Despite the most pains-taking research, no one has yet found the answer. One explanationoffered by scientists is that people tend to stay together indoors more in cold weather than at othertimes, and this makes it easier for cold viruses to be passed on.

No one has yet found a cure for the cold. There are drugs and pain suppressors such as aspirin,but all they do is relieve the symptoms.

The passage mainly discusses __________.