WAGING WAR ON COMMON COLD
TESTS ON HUM'ANS 1 ! VIRUS NOT YET ISOLATED BY SCIJENTISTS. Facts of the concerfced attaek by British medical science^on the eommon cold were given to me by Dr. C. A. Andrewes, senior baefceriologist in the lahoratories of the National Instibute of Medical Research, when I visited him recently, writes Jan Cox i from London. It was Dr. Andrewes j who, with other members of the in- i stitute's staff, started war on influenza | 15 years ago and made a vaccine which j produced immunity in the laboratory. i Suhsequent research, carried out on j the basis of that done at the National Institute, made possible the production of the vaccine now employecl (most largely, perhaps, in the United •States) to prevent epidemics of the disease. Dr. Andrewes stresses that this attaek he is leading against the common cold is now in mmch the same stage as the attack on .influenza was in 1933. It is pract'ically certain that the cold is caused, just as influenza is, by a .virus — an organism so small that it cannot be seen even with the aid of the most. powerful optical mieroscope — and that it passes through all but the finest filters. Now, one cannot study the effect o± a virus or any other micro-organism unless one is able to obtain specimens known to be aboslutely free from other microhes. The choice of filters to "catch" the cold virus and let other organisms ge is, therefore, a matter of primai'y importance. Filtrates Can Be Separated. In actual fact, filters made from collodion proved suitable, and it is now possible to produce a "filtrate" of the common eold virus after^ obtaining specimens of it from a human being suffering from its effects. Further, as the size of the pores in these filters' is known, the size of the virus can be gauged. The next step, having1 isolated the virus, is to keep it alive. An organism in filtrate will not live indefinitely. and so it becomes necessary to discover if there is any material in which these minute bodies can be grown. This is what the common cold research unit is trying" to do at this moment: it is experimenting in virus farming-. Here the work of two Australian medica! men, Drs. Beveridge and Burnet, ha> been of considerahle value in showing how the various parts' of the chick embryo may be suitable for growing some viruses — 60 diffei-ent types havo been tried, and more than 40 proved positive. It is not known yet, however, how far this is applicable to the virus that causes the common cold. This pro blem, and the endeavour to discover the best method of growing- the virus and getting it to multiply, is therefore the principal preoccupation of Dr. Andrewes and his colleagu.es at the moment. Human Yolunteers Resporid. The last consideration raises the question of how one is to know when a virus is dead. They cannot be seen, except in certain conditions with the aid of a new electron mieroscope, and even then it is not possible to ascertain whether they are active or not. The only way of discovering if they have retained their vitality, therefore, is by seeing if they are capable of infecting an animal body. As far as the common cold is eoncerned, the difflculty here is that the only animal, other than the human, known to 'be susceptible to it is the chimpanzee — which, for a variety" oi obvious'reasons, is not a very suitable subject for larg-e-scale experiments. The only alternative, then, has been to call for human volunteers from the general public. The response has been rapid, over 1:500 having applied. The routine at the Harvard Hospital, formerly an American army hospital in remote country near Salisbury, where t'he work is being* carried out, is strict only so. far as scientific control of experiments is concerned. Each volunteer is given a medical examination before acceptance to ensure that he has not already been infected with the cold virus, and has to be observe certain restrictions designed to prevent any but intentional infection. Sterile Checks. Subsequently, there is accommodation for 24 volunteers in ,self-containecl flats. They axx*ive usually on Wednesday, are intentionally infected (or not) with one of the virus preparations on Saturday. The object of the experiments is to determine the efficacy of several different methods of growing the virus in an active state and, in order that there shall not be any element of human error on the part of the clinical staff observing the symptoms develop, four out of every 24 volunteers are given a preparation that is sterile (that is, contains no active bodies at all) and no one except the staff in London fcnows which bottles contain this "eontrol material." So far, Dr. Andrewes tells me, suitable material on which the virus may be grown articficially has not been discovered, but valuable results have already been obtained in eonnection with the problem of istoring and preparing. filtrates. This, though, is only a very early stage in an investigation that may talie two years or longer to complete. ^
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Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5326, 12 February 1947, Page 2
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855WAGING WAR ON COMMON COLD Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5326, 12 February 1947, Page 2
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