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.