Evening star., 1949-11-16
Cure for Common Colds
Seen Still Far in Future
Public Health Service Doctors
Report on Tests at Lorton
Bv Thomas r. Henry

DV L HOWUS H. xlEWy
u S. Public Health Service doctors take
q fishy view of the flood of common cold
preventives and remedies now being ad-
vertised for sale over the counter without
prescription.
All are variations of common prescrip-
ton for prevention of the release of the
powerful chemical hiStamine in the blood
stream.
This is a basic phenomenon in the So
called allergies-ragweed fever, rose fever
and the like. Their initial symptoms are
very similar to those of the common cold.
There is the same low feeling, headache.
nasal discharge.
Have Different Cause.
But actual colds-there may be several
varieties of them-have a quite different
cause. They are due to one or more Of
the so-called filterabe viruses-most mi
mute of living organisms, which also are re-
sponsible for influenza. polio, mumps, whoop-
ing cough and host of other diseases.
OF all the viruses known to cause vari-
Gus human and animal diseases, the cold
virus seems to be about the most elusive.
About all that is known is that some almost
inflnitesimally minute particle which can
be filtered from nasal discharges of per-
sons with real colds-not allergies-Wiu
cause colds in others.
Two years ago Public Health Service bac-
teriologists believed they had succeeded in
isolating this virus from a cold victim. They
had their hands on something which could
be cultivated in incubating eggs-the COM
mon method of keeping a virus preparation
alive-Which would cause colds when given
to human volunteers.
Tests Made at L0rton.
Tests have been continued ever since with
volunteer prisoners at the District of CO.
npnitpnfjorU No p,1f
within the last few months the virus has
been "lost'-that is the material grown in
the eggs no longer produces colds.
DR.. Leon Atlas and his associates at the
National Institute of Health laboratories are
trying every trick known to revive it, but
apparently with no success.
The theory of the anti-histamine drugs is
that some chemical constituent in the virus
itself has the effect of causing an allergy.
This is impossible to prove or disprove since
there can be no possible chemical analysis
of the virus.
The new drugs are based largely on the
work of Capt. John M. Brewster of the Navy,
who experimental with sailors at the Naval
Hospital at Great Lakes, Ill. They do not
believe these experiments were well enough
controlled for any far-reaching conclusions
to be drawn from them. Colds were not
adequately separated from alergies. The
\
deny the theory of chemical allergy with
the release of histamine. They only claim
there is no proof of it.
Exclusively Human.
One difficulty is that cold research can be
carried out only with human volunteers. The
cold is an exclusively human disease. The
only possible exception is the chimpanzee,
and these great apes are altogether too ex-
pensive to be used on the wholesale scale
necessary.
At Lorton Is volunteer prisoners are used.
Each experiment requires four to five weeks.
First the prisoner must be completely isolated
| for week to make sure he had not picked
| up cold from other inmates. Then he is
| inoculated with the virus material. and the
cold requires about week to Develop. Then
two or three weeks are necessary to test the
material . -
Two hundred volunteers for a year were
required to isolate the virus in the beginning
and its loss is considered major one
Isolated viruses have been reported both
from the University of Texas and from
Columbia, but in each case there has been
great difficulty in keeping them alive
The new remedies the Public Health Serv-
ice doctors believe. may do some good and
will do little harm, but they feel that cure
for the cold still lies far in the flltl1re