The common cold was known among the ancient American Indian, Aztec and Maya civilization.
The famous early Greek physician Hippocrates – who lived around 460 BC to 377 BC – believed colds occurred when ‘waste matter’ built in the brain.
When the waste matter overflowed, it caused runny noses. That is why the Greeks called the common cold catarrh, meaning ‘flow’.
During the first century Pliny the Elder suggested ‘kissing the hairy muzzle of a mule’ as therapy for colds.
At the same time in Rome, Celsus wrote about the common cold and prescribed a more popular remedy – flagons of good Italian wine.
The cold is discussed in Arabic works dedicated primarily to pharmacy and dietetics. A cold was thought to be caused by the cold in winter, but can be offset with appropriate clothing.
A summer cold, however, described by Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), was caused by the seasonal heat, that ‘melted the hard excretions that are found in the brain and then they run down’.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, hot drinks that raised a sweat were thought to be perfect antidote for the cold.
Ben Franklin declared that fresh air prevented colds, since he observed that colds were contracted by close contact with other cold sufferers.
It was not until first Walter Kruse and then Alphonse Donchez in the early part of the 20th century demonstrated that viruses caused the common cold.
The first isolation of human rhinovirus was reported by two laboratories in the late 1950s: Price in 1956 and Pelon and co-workers in 1957.
History of common cold
