The common cold is the world's most widespread illness-which is probably why there are more myths about it than any other illness.
The most widespread fallacy of all is that colds are caused by cold. They are not. They are caused by viruses passed from one person to person.
You catch a cold by coming into contact , directly or indirectly with someone who already has one. If cold causes colds, It would be reasonable to expect the eskimos to suffer from them permanently.But they do not. And in isolated arctic regions explorers have reported being free from colds until coming into contact again with infected people from the outside world by way of packages and mail dropped from airplanes.
During the first world war, soldiers who spent long periods in the trenches, cold and wet, showed no increased tendency to catch cold.