What you would want is text files not an html file to use as your header and footer.
Dont' forget to end the print statement before you add this to your page_top or page_bottom for example:
|; &include ("cookside.txt"); print qq|
I'm not sure this will work using a path, but can be used as a relative link from your db file directory, or a copy to be used within the database. I use a separate text file within my db directories as they include my side menus which would have different url to the static page links or the page bottom which would have different links to the graphics.
Unoffical DBMan FAQ
http://creativecomputingweb.com/dbman/index.shtml/