Vitamin C and the common cold by 18%. Severity was also reduced. However, if vitamin C was started only when the first symptoms of a cold were being felt, there were no benefits for duration or severity. Vitamin C and the common cold The common cold, or simply cold, is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract. The cold is indeed common, and is a significant cause for absences from work and school. Even before the discovery of vitamin C, folklore had it that certain fruits were effective in both preventing and treating the cold. After scientific identification of vitamin C in the early
Names of the days of the week nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. Our earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to the 6th February ("viii idus Februarius") of the year AD 60 as "dies solis" ("Sunday"). Another early witness is a reference to a lost treatise by Plutarch, written in about AD 100, which addressed the question of "Why are the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the actual order?". The days were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars ("Ares"), Mercury ("Hermes"), Jupiter ("Zeus"), Venus ("Aphrodite") and Saturn ("Cronos"). The