Medicine: Cause of Colds

The $195,000 which the Chemical Foundation gave Johns Hopkins for a five-year investigation of the Common Cold (TIME, Jan. 23, 1928), last week produced three clear facts: 1) colds are not the result of chemical changes in the body as has been theorized; 2) colds are not directly caused by micrococcus coryza described by Dr. John Arthur Franklin Pfeiffer of Baltimore (TIME, June 23), or by any other visible germ; 3) colds are apparently caused by a virus, which the finest of filters cannot trap and whose source has not yet been ascertained.

Reporters of these findings were Dr. James Angus Doull,...

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