Home Companion

Young Dr. Harold Aaron of Manhattan, author of a book on constipation, spent a year collecting many of the latest medical wrinkles that laymen need to know. Last week he published a cheery home companion. Good Health and Bad Medicine (McBride; $3), giving scientific advice on colds, bellyaches, feet, tooth decay, pimples, laxatives, painkillers, hair tonics.

Colds. Medical science has no preventive nor cure for the common cold, says Dr. Aaron. Only thing to do when you catch cold: go home and wait for it to blow over. Special vaccines may help break up colds, will not forestall them. Nor will Vitamin A or ultraviolet treatments provide "cold-defense." Most nose drops must be used with great care, for they often injure delicate membranes, spread infection to the ears. Only safe remedy for stuffiness, says Dr. Aaron, is neo-synephrine snuffed up the nose, or ephedrine in salt solution, not oil. Oil drops may dribble into the lungs, cause a kind of pneumonia, especially in young children. "Unquestionably effective" are benzedrine inhalers if used "cautiously and strictly according to directions."

Alkalizers. "The blood of a healthy person is no more in need of 'alkalizing' . . . than the eyes need an eyewash to keep them moist; with the common cold or grippe and . . . constipation, there is no accumulation of acid. . . . Fatigue, a 'dark brown' taste, a foggy feeling, jitters or headache are not to the slightest extent caused by 'acids in the blood.' "

Harmless Pleasures. "Most useful" and "safest" stimulant is caffeine, principal active ingredient of coffee and tea. "A moderate amount such as is contained in one or two cups of coffee . . . heightens the intellectual functions, increases the efficiency of the muscles and lessens the feeling of fatigue. . . . Although alcohol is frequently used as a stimulant, its real effect is to depress the nervous system . . . like ether or chloroform." Those who like liquor ought to save their drinking till night, when they don't have to work or drive a car. Contrary to popular opinion, "mere mixing of good liquors will not cause intoxication."

As for tobacco, "so many pathological conditions have been laid at tobacco's door by honest doctors, only to be taken away again by equally honest doctors, that it would be futile to enumerate them." Ten cigarets a day, says the tolerant doctor, never hurt a healthy adult.

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