Although sore throat, nasal congestion, and cough may not yet be present, there are probably enough clues in the environment to point to an incipient cold.

1. Is it cold season, usually early fall or winter?
2. Do other people in the immediate area—relatives, friends, associates—have colds?
3. Is it time of general contagion? In cities, for example, colds and virus infections spread very quickly through small populations in schools, offices, and apartment buildings.
4. Has there been recent contact with possible sources of infection, such as restaurant silverware that might have been handled by a sick waiter, strangers met at a party who might be carriers, or fellow straphangers on public transportation?

This is the kind of non medical diagnosis that can be made, without presumption, by anybody; and its benefits far exceed that of stopping the progress of a cold.
Sharpening the powers of observation, training the mind and the memory to take notice of seemingly trivial aspects of the environment, can help the individual protect and provide for itself.
The more aware you are, the more capable.

  Once it has been established that the headache is indeed the harbinger of a cold, it is not enough merely to cure the symptom and hope the disease will be discouraged. Two aspirin will more than suffice for this kind of headache, but aspirin alone will not prevent the advent of the cold. Both symptom and eventual illness must be treated. The best thing to do is to act as if the cold had already struck.

1. Use the conventional treatments—aspirin, bed rest, fruit juice, warmth, and quiet—plus those traditional remedies that always seem to work for you, like chicken soup, blackberry brandy, foot baths, grapes, heated stockings filled with salt, or mustard plasters.
2. If the cold is developing, the infection is there whether you feel it or not, and these cures will be just as effective, or more so, than they are when the full force of the illness is upon you.

          But given a headache alone, with no accompanying symptoms or environmental clues, how can you really be sure it stems from an incipient cold?

1. Again, from previous experience.
2. You know approximately how long it has taken for this type of headache to pass.
3. Is this one following the same timetable, or do you have to increase dosage to get even partial relief?
4. Does the headache return with renewed force after a few hours?
5. If the answer to these questions is yes, and you still don’t feel any of the symptoms of an approaching cold
6. Then the headache might stem from some other dysfunction.

      Now, some other questions have to be asked.

1. Is the pain concentrated in the front of the head, mostly in forehead and temples?
2. Is the quality and intensity of the pain the same?
3. Are there any sudden changes in your body?
4. Has your vision been normal?
5. Have you been impatient and irritable over the last few days?
6. Have you suddenly put on weight?
7. Are you feeling sluggish?
8. Does the headache come in the morning, and slowly get better as the day progresses?
9. Does it strike after meals, or before retiring?
10. If it is following a different pattern than it usually does, then perhaps it is a symptom of a different disorder.

And if it persists for several days, defying all commercial remedies, then a visit to the doctor is indicated.