Essay/Term paper: Common viral cold

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Medicine

My
report is on the common viral cold, I would like to
go talk about how it is cought, its symptoms and
how to cure it as quick as possible. The common
cold is cought by coming in contact with some one
who has the virus, thus the cold is cought through
direct contact, from one infected person to the
next, or from, Being in side in the winter time with
the heater on all the time, the lack of air flow is a
great place for air born particles to sit and rest up
the heaters on only move the virus around more.
The best way to avoid catching the cold is not to
shake hands with a person who has a nasty habit
of picking their nose, because the virus then gets
on there hands, and is spread from them to you in
all the happy hand shaking that goes on. As a
matter of fact avoiding hand shakes and washing
your hands is the best way to avoid getting a cold.
Kissing your sweet heart, is no problem if he or
she has the cold, because there is not much of the
virus in saliva, even lingering kisses rarely spread
colds. Using disposable tissues as apposed to
your elegant embroidered handkerchief is a good
way to avoid the cold, because the handkerchief
acts as a little hang out for the virus, it will only
wait for you to touch it to your nose and it will
infect you again. Symptoms for the cold are,
sneezing, coughing, swollen lymph nodes,
wheezing, excessive amounts of mucus, and tired
and drained feeling. The Cold is highly contagious,
and has a very rapid onset of symptoms, and the
incubation period is any ware from 24 to 48
hours. The virus attacks our bodies and uses our
own cells to reproduce themselves, so in ideal
condition a virus can divide every 20 minutes,
which means that in 24 hours one virus can have
16 million offspring. The virus had the capacity to
mutate, so due to the fact that it mutates frequently
our bodies find it difficult to recognize it and it
takes longer to fight the infection. Recovery from
the cold is fairly simple, stay warm (not hot) Get
lots of fluids and rest. Wait the cold out it should
go away in 5 to 7 days, if the symptoms worsen or
drag out for ever then go see a doctor, it might
have turned into an upper respiratory infection,
which is quite nasty and painful. Contrary to
popular believe over the counter drugs do not do
much for the cold, and may only add to your
misery by giving stomach pains and drowsiness.
Cough drops may ease the coughing and sore
through, but be are full, cough drops can become
addictive after a few days, and hard candies do
the same thing. So use your soar throat as an
example to eat your favorite hard candy. As of yet
there is no cure for the common cold, due to the
fact that it is able to mutate it self when ever it sees
fit. But it does provide us with some useful
information. Ancient civilizations knew colds as
katarrhein, from the Greek meaning "to flow
down". In the last century however, the term
"cold" or "catching cold" was blamed on England"s
cold, damp weather, and this term is now used
world wide. Now lets disprove some old wives
tales O.K.. Remember how your mother always
said "Don"t go out side with out your coat on, or
you"ll catch cold?" Well actually according to
researchers, you might freeze to death, but with
out a coat on, you"re no more likely to catch a
cold. "the Cold Season" is most common in fall
and spring. Cold season is more dependent on the
temperature, when it gets cold people tend to
spend more time indoors in an atmosphere where
air moves less. This concludes my piece on the
common cold, thanks for reading.