Catarrh (Gr. katarreo, 'I flow down'), a disease of great frequency in temperate latitudes, especially in changeable moist climates in the winter season. From its well-known connection with sudden falls of temperature, and other epidemic or atmospheric causes (see INFLUENZA), as also from the chill often experienced at the commencement of the disease, it is popularly called a cold—a term, however, perhaps somewhat less definite in its meaning than catarrh, which word is usually restricted to the case of a cold affecting the chest, and attended with discharge of mucus by coughing. A 'cold in the head' is termed, in strict scientific language, Coryza; we shall, however, keep both forms in view in the present article. Catarrh, or cold, commonly begins with a feeling of chilliness, which may or may not be attributable to external causes. Sometimes this is absent, there being only a sense of languor and indisposition; not unfrequently there is no sensation of an unusual kind, until a stuffing is experienced in the nostrils, or severe headache, or hoarseness with cough, or oppression of the breathing. It most commonly attacks the nostrils first, and afterwards the air-passages leading to the chest. But the mucous membranes of the eyes and mouth are often affected, as well as those of the nose, throat, and lungs; and the disease may begin in any of these situations, and either spread to them all or leave one or more unaffected. When it habitually attacks the chest, without running through its ordinary course as indicated above, there is often some special cause of delicacy in the lungs, or some constitutional tendency towards Consumption (q.v.). The affected mucous membrane is at first abnormally red and swollen, and its secretion diminished. But it soon begins to pour out a discharge, at first watery, but afterwards glairy and of a yellowish colour, or purulent. The early stages of the disease are attended by considerable irritation of the surfaces affected, and probably no one of the little miseries of life is more prostrating and discouraging for the time than a bad cold in the head. The tendency of catarrh to attack the chest, and thus to pass into Bronchitis (q.v.) or Pneumonia (q.v.), or to lay the foundation of tubercular disease, constitutes almost its only danger.
The treatment of a cold is commonly a simple matter, so far as the particular attack is concerned. But so many colds disappear in a little time without any special treatment that few persons, unless in delicate health, are willing to subject themselves to the confinement which is necessary to give any form of treatment a chance of success. In the earliest stage a warm lip or foot bath, and a large opi ate (Dover's powder especially) at bedtime, if followed by confinement to the house, and, in severe cases, to bed or to the sofa for a day or two, light farinaceous diet, and, if the stomach and bowels are at all loaded, a dose or two of some gentle laxative, will generally cut short the disease. In some persons it yields readily and quickly to spirit of camphor, five drops on a lump of sugar every half-hour; but in others no effect is produced. Free bathing of the nose with hot water may relieve the irritability and discharge. In most cases frequent sipping of warm soothing drinks—gruel, barley-water, black-currant tea, &c.—is grateful to the patient; sometimes ice gives more relief. Some persons cure their colds by entire abstinence from food, and as much as possible from drink; others by spirit of milderer and paregoric; some even profess to carry out the popular maxim, 'stuff a cold, and starve a fever,' and maintain that a good dinner and a tumbler of whisky or brandy toddy are the best specifics. That colds get well under all these methods need not be denied; but multiplied experience has shown that 'stuffing a cold' at its commencement is by no means to be commended. In the later stages, however, a more liberal diet than at first, and in some cases even a moderate allowance of stimulants, affords considerable relief from the feeling of depression that remains for a time on the subsidence of a catarrh. The tendency to this disease, when habitual, and when not dependent on any form of constitutional disorder requiring special means for its cure, is best met by the daily use of the cold bath, with frequent exercise in the open air, and proper ventilation of the sleeping-apartment; also by friction of the skin, and by clothing which, without being oppressive, is comfortably warm. Exposure to draughts or sudden chills when the surface is perspiring is to be avoided; but a close confined air habitually breathed in a workshop or bedroom is a fruitful predisposing cause of the disease.
Catarrh or catarrhal inflammation is also used in modern pathology of an inflammation with the characters above described in any mucous membrane whatever; we have, for example, catarrh of the stomach, intestines, bladder, &c.