Well, it's cold and flu season again. I love the way we run those words together. Cold-and-flu. Cold'n'flu. Coldenflu. It's like saying liver-spots-n-leprosy. Pimples-n-plague. Sure, they're both bad, but isn't one, um, noticeably worse? Absolutely. Flu kills about 50,000 people a year in the United States. You rarely hear of someone dying of a cold.

On the other hand, you can get a shot that pretty much protects you from the flu, at least for a year. But, famously, there is no cure for the common cold.

If they can invent disco, why can't they cure the common cold?

No, wait, that's not how it goes. If they can send a man to the Moon, why can't they cure the common cold? Well, because space technology doesn't help against colds. "Wernher, let's make some nasal spray out of your rocket fuel!" It didn't work. No, but seriously: The question should be, "If they can develop a vaccine for smallpox, why can't they cure the common cold?"

Are they getting close? No. Will they ever? No. The main reason is that "the common cold" is not just one disease. It's about 200; that's how many different kinds of cold viruses have been isolated, and they're still counting.

Our best medicine against viruses are vaccines, which work by giving you a very light case of a viral illness. Once your body has seen a virus, your immune system can build antibodies to it. Antibodies work by capping the part of the virus that docks to your cells, but it has to be an exact fit, like a lock to a key. That's why your body has to "see" a virus before it can build antibodies to it.

The trouble with cold viruses is that they keep changing. With many other viruses, one vaccination fixes you for life--but when the same cold virus comes around a year or two later, your body says, "Hey stranger, never seen you 'round these parts, come on in and sit for a spell." In short, you've still got the old wanted posters, but the criminal has had plastic surgery.

And during the year or two that you've been immune to one cold virus, you've been open to attack by all the other 199 types. So, actually, we can cure the common cold--if we're willing to have at least 200 vaccinations a year and someone's willing to develop 200 new ones every year!

So what's a sniffling, sneezing, stuffy-headed, feverish person to do?

Blood, demons, and whiskey
Good news! Colds have plagued humans since time immemorial, and along the way various folks have come up with sure-fire cures. But there's some bad news too: Most of these "cures" don't really work.

The ancient Greeks believed that colds were caused by excess waste matter in the brain. They thought the stuff that runs out of your nose was the aforementioned waste matter draining from the brain. If that were true, I know some politicians who'd have runny noses all the time. And what was the cure, according to the Greeks? Bleeding! I don't know why this treatment made intuitive sense to so many later generations: Cutting into a vein and letting the blood drip out, that's got to be good for you. Huh? And yet by the Middle Ages, bleeding was pretty much the only treatment in the medical kit and it was recommended for every illness.

The Romans, by contrast, didn't care what caused the common cold. They were practical types. All they cared about was how to get rid of one. Their great naturalist Pliny the Elder had the answer: Kiss the hairy muzzle of a mouse. Thanks, but I'd rather have a cold.

The medieval Christian church recommended fighting colds with prayer. Back then many people believed that colds were caused by demons getting into a person's nose, which made the person sneeze, which allowed part of the person's soul to escape their body. (That's where we get our superstition about covering our noses when we sneeze.) I confess this gives me a whole new perspective on the soul, its appearance, and its attributes. But let's not go there.

The theory that colds were caused by exposure to cold, damp weather came around in 16th-century England. Ben Franklin disproved this myth with scientific experiments conducted on himself, but he couldn't convince his contemporaries. Scientists later proved that Franklin was right, yet many people still believe colds are caused by cold.

In 19th-century America, many people recommended whiskey for colds. In fact, they recommended whiskey for everything. It took the place of bleeding. (And I must admit that, to me, drinking whiskey does sound more medicinal than bleeding.) If whiskey didn't work, 19th-century Americans favored moving on to morphine. Patent medicines peddled as mysterious cure-alls by quacks who traveled from town to town were often just syrupy concoctions laced with alcohol or morphine (or both).

We haven't come very far since then. Today's multi-symptom cold remedies also claim to fight myriad symptoms, and many of them contain up to twice as much alcohol as wine.

• Just say no to drugs. When it comes to colds, any medicine is worse than none at all. Cold symptoms are caused by your own troops, not the virus's. They're things your immune system is doing to cripple the intruders. Drugs that suppress your symptoms only hogtie your natural defenses.
• If you must use drugs, use single-symptom, generic drugs. So says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Cold symptoms tend to appear in sequence, not all at once. So multi-symptom formulas often give you too much or not enough medicine for any given symptom. Avoid time-release capsules for the same reason. And the generic part? Cheaper. Everything you can get in a fancy bottle comes in a generic form too. It's the same medicine. Ask your pharmacist.
• Gargle with warm salt water if you have a sore throat. This hastens the healing process. In the meantime, suck hard candies. (But beware: A sore throat can be a symptom of an illness worse than a cold.)
• Drink 8 ounces of hot liquid every two hours. Cold liquids can contribute to congestion.
  Increase the humidity around you. Viruses thrive in cool, dry environments. That's why your immune system floods your nose with warm, wet gush.
• Use a cool cloth to control the discomfort of fever. (And remember that very high fevers can be dangerous.)
• Inhale warm vapors to ease nasal congestion. You can just hold your face over a bowl of hot water and breathe.
• Elevate your head at night to keep your head clear.
• Cough and cough and cough. Especially if it produces phlegm.
• Avoid contact with cold germs. After all, the best offense is a good defense. During cold season, frequently disinfect doorknobs and common objects around your house with a disinfectant spray. Wash your hands frequently. You can easily catch a cold if you have viruses on your hands and then touch your nose or eyes. Don't use cloth hankies; use paper tissues instead.
  

What do the (ahem) visionaries say?
Scientists aren't the only ones with ideas on how to stop a cold. Hard science may be more accurate, but fringe science is more interesting. Who knows? Maybe some of these remedies will work for you.

Eat chicken soup. The 12th-century Jewish physician Moses Maimonedes recommended "soup from a fat hen." That's right: chicken soup. Maimonides, it turns out, was on to something. In October 2000 researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center reported that chicken soup showed anti-inflammatory properties in laboratory tests.

Take vitamin C. American chemist and two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling said big doses of vitamin C could prevent colds and huge doses could get rid of them. Studies have shown that he was right. Studies have also shown that he was wrong. Pauling responded to the latter studies, saying that they didn't use enough vitamin C. By "big doses" he meant 4,000 mg a day for prevention and up to 20,000 mgs for a cure. (The FDA's minimum daily requirement is 250 mg.)

Keep lots of houseplants. These increase humidity in your house, and cold viruses don't like humidity. Also, houseplants produce negative air ions known as anions. Ions are gas molecules that carry an electrical charge. Positive ions--known as cations--seem to have negative effects: fatigue, irritability, and upper respiratory problems. Negative ions have positive effects. So maybe lots of houseplants can reduce the number of colds you get. (Incidentally, smoking, synthetic fibers, VDT screens, and central heating or air conditioning deplete air ions. If you work in a big office, you're more likely to get a cold. My advice: quit your job.)

Practice selfless love. Immunoglobulin is a key element in the immune system. Lots of it in the blood helps you resist colds. Harvard psychologist David McClelland discovered something curious. When he showed a film about Mother Teresa to a bunch of people, their immunoglobulin level went up. This happened whether the test subjects admired Mother Teresa or not. (Some didn't.) What counted, McClelland said, was the fact that his subjects believed in the sincerity of a quality Mother Teresa radiated. He dubbed this quality "selfless love."

Exposure to selfless love, therefore, may increase your resistance to colds. If mere exposure to selfless love helps you, imagine how much protection you could get from practicing selfless love! But come to think of it, if you're practicing selfless love in order to get fewer colds, it's not really selfless, is it?

Personally, I can't wait for a cold to strike so I can try some of these remedies! After all, I've heard it said that if you leave a cold untreated, it can drag on for a week, but if you take immediate, aggressive steps, you can get rid of it in just seven days.