The Still Common Cold

When President Johnson fell ill, it was "an upper respiratory infection." Last week, as more Washington bigwigs fell prey to swarming viruses, Washington gossip dubbed the disease "executive flu" and blamed its spread on too many people being crammed into tight spaces--such as the White House dance floor. To most victims, the trouble remains an unglorified bad cold. By any name, and of whatever severity, it is still a mystery.

Sir Christopher Andrewes has spent most of his virologist's life studying the ailment, and in a new book just published in London, The Common Cold (Weidenfeld and Nicolson; 25 s.), Andrewes sums up what is known about the disease. He concludes that even the name is dubious. "That it is common admits of no dispute. But why cold? Is it because we feel chilly when we have a cold or because chilling brings it on (or is supposed to do so) or because the infection is commoner during the cold time of the year?"

Probing for answers at the Common Cold Research Unit at Harvard Hospital (named for a World War II U.S. project) near Stonehenge, Dr. Andrewes set up an ingenious scheme for testing much of the folklore about colds, and for doing highly technical virology in a search for preventives and cures. Volunteer couples, including several newlyweds, were invited to spend ten free days in the hospital's small guest apartments; they even got cigarette money. But in return, they had to submit to some chilling experiments.

Nearly all the volunteers had a liquid dripped into their nostrils. Sometimes it was a suspension, presumably containing a virus, derived from the mucus of other volunteers who had in fact had colds. Sometimes it was a plain saline solution. Not even the doctors knew which it was until after the test. Some subjects agreed to take hot showers, then stand around in a cold corridor without drying themselves. Others went out in the rain, got drenched, and then sat around in a cold room. Volunteers had to use paper tissues instead of handkerchiefs, and keep count of each tissue. Some of Sir Christopher's findings: > Determining whether a person even has a cold is no easy matter. Some people naturally have runnier noses than others. (Fever or severe sore throat would indicate another respiratory infection--not a common cold.) As good an index as any proved to be the number of tissues used: five to ten a day for someone with a mild cold. The record was 165.

> There is no single common-cold virus. There are scores of such viruses, and many (but not necessarily all) are in a distinct class called rhinoviruses.

> Except for chimpanzees, animals do not catch human colds. Cats get dreadful colds, and some from rhinoviruses--"but cat rhinoviruses, not human ones." > Chilling has little if anything to do with a person's developing a cold. Presumably resistance to the virus is a factor, but how it works is not known. > Some colds are not catching at all, and no one knows how they get started. Others are most catching in the early stages (almost the only item of folklore confirmed by scientific research). They are spread by sneezing and coughing, though a handkerchief promptly and properly used will check the spread. A wet handkerchief pulled from the pocket with an energetic flourish spreads virus particles generously. After it has dried, the handkerchief becomes virtually noninfectious.

No preventive or cure is in sight, despite a great deal of work and even more folklore. As people grow older they naturally tend to have fewer colds --and therefore, says Andrewes, they tend to find "proof" that their own pet precautions really work. Useful vaccines may eventually be developed, but the difficulty is that there are too many cold viruses to put them all in one vaccine. What is needed is something like the influenza vaccine, a combination of the strains known to be prevalent at a given place and time. For the present, even that type cold vaccine is beyond the skill of the virologists.

As for remedies, says Sir Christopher, one can only face the fact that they are merely "treatments to make you feel better while you are getting better."

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