Found, a Cure for Common Cold !

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1076, 13 September 1930, Page 18

Found, a Cure for Common Cold !

Baffling Complaint That Has Cost Industry, Alone, Millions of Pounds . . . Lonely Laboratory Worker Claims to Have Isolated Germ . . . And Nov/ to Slay It!

■ HEN Dr. J. A. F. Pfeiffer announced that he had located the germ which causes the common cold, he accomplished singlehanded in the loneliness of his own laboratory what groups of scientists are striving to achieve in research work in many parts of the world. While the cold is one of the minor maladies which afflict mankind and does not often go beyond causing extreme discomfort to the person whose body it invades, it visits each one of us at least twice a year, and the loss in wages alone to workers represents an enormous sum. With his discovery of the specific organism which causes eyes to water and heads to ache, turns the nose wet and the palate dry and stirs our body •temperature into a fever, Dr. Pfeiffer has named the offender micrococcus coryza, which, freely translated, means a particular form of microscopic life causing an acute inflammation of the nasal passages. Dr. Pfeiffer declares the germ is not a microscopic form which has been known before and considered harmless; it is a species of microbe which is entirely unknown to the students of the minute world. He first saw it seven years ago in the spot under the lens of his microscope. but not wishing to make a premature announcement which might not stand the test of scientific investigation. he withheld a public statement until be was absolutely convinced by searching study and repeated proof that the micrococcus coryza was the long-sought marauder of the mucous membranes. He describes the bacterium responsible for our universal discomfort and tremendous industrial loss as a tiny spherical organism about one-liundred-•thousandth of an inch in diameter. It occurs singly, in pairs or in short rows. Dr. Pfeiffer has not only identified and reproduced the micrococcus from the original strain which he was the first to see, but he passed it from animal to animal in the laboratory, from person to person in his clinic, thus proving its responsibility for infecting people with the common cold. He has also developed a vaccine which will prevent the catching of colds for two or three years, and he has also been successful in breaking up colds with the use of vaccine. An anti-toxin is also under development. For the alleviation of a cold there have been treatments but no cure. Doctors have again and again confessed that they could get no definite knowledge on the subject of this ailment. There are said to be 45,000 alleged cold-curing drugs on the market. In discussing the activity of the micrococcus coryza, Dr. Pfeiffer separ-

ates the common cold from afflictions of the lungs and throat. This germ, new to bacteriology, was discovered as the result of sevei. years’ work in the course of research which was conducted in connection with his work in acute rhinitis. The germ causing the common cold has always been thought to be invisible and called a filterable virus, because it could be sent through a stone filter and still retain its virulence. This germ is perhaps filterable in certain types of filters, but it is visible under the microscope. After its isolation it was tested out on healthy human beings by spraying the culture into the nasal passages. A strong nasal cold would be developed in 24 hours. Treatment in the form of a vaccine, introduced under the skin, was then instituted, and it was found that the cold would break up in short order. Dr. Pfeiffer was graduated from the University of Maryland in 1908 and went abroad for further study in Paris and London and at the Universities of Munich and Frankfurt. He has studied under Ehrlich, world-famous bacteriologist and discoverer of salvarsau, and also under Edinger, Alzheimer and Kraepelin. In studying the age distribution of colds it has been found that the human body is most likely to be unable to resist up to about the age of 10. From that period the body seems to be able to resist the invader with some effectiveness and the germ is held off until about the age of 35, when the resistance of the system slackens to some d'egree. The micrococcus coryza lies in wait for persons who get suddenly chilled, -whose systems are run down by overwork or lack of care, or it follows any other affliction where the vitality has been lowered and the mechanism of the body is unable to regulate the temperature quickly enough to respond to the need of the changes in the weather. Studies have shown how the nose, mouth, throat and lungs of Eskimos are affected by acute attacks of germs, but these researches reveal that the Eskimos do not catch severe infections of this kind unless they have been in contact with somebody who has come from the outside world. Studies of apes showed that these anthropoids, when protected from frequent human contact, do not spontaneously acquire colds. The infectiousness of common colds was demonstrated in 1922, after four years of research by Dr. Peter K. Olitzky, who developed the theory that the organism causing all the trouble was so small as to escape detection under the microscope; so small, in fact, that it could pass through a fine porcelain filter. As a consequence, research followed on the virus which could be passed through a filter.

Since Dr. Pfeiffer found the germ seven years ago he has taken the micrococcus through the various laboratory procedures deemed necessary to prove that this is the specific germ which causes the common cold. First, he found that when he transplanted fully isolated strains of this germ from one person to another that it pi’oduced in the new host all the typical symptoms of acute rhinitis. A frequent examination of the discharges showed that the new microbe existed as long as the symptoms of the cold existed and for some time afterward. When he experimented on rabbits with the new coccus he found that the virulent strains of the germ caused the death of rabbits within 24 hours. He also proved that the strains of this organism taken from cases of acute colds contain a toxin or poison which causes an inflammatory reaction when injected in the skin of rabbits. To complete the cycle, he made a serum which made it possible for rabbits to be immune from the inflammatory and poisonous effects of the coccus he injected. “I felt sure that I had isolated the germ seven years ago,” declares Dr. Pfeiffer, “but it was only after every possible check was made of the original discovery that I made the announcement and claimed the discovery.” Despite the fact that there is considerable confusion in medical circles regarding the nature of the common cold, Dr. Pfeiffer has no doubt that there is a difference between the 'socalled head cclA and other types of inflammation of the respiratory tract, such as bronchitis, laryngitis or influenza. "The common cold is acute rhinitis,” he said, “and this affliction is caused by the organism which I have named micrococcus coryza. “The particular disease which I have investigated and of which I claim to have isolated the germ is acute rhinitis, affecting the nasal passages, causing a congestive headache in the forehead and affecting the upper parts of the throat, such as the soft palate. “This, in lay language, is the cold of sneezes and coughs—the ‘cold in the head.’ ” In summing up his claims, Dr. Pfeiffer said: “This organism has been repeatedly isolated from cases of acute rhinitis. It has produced experimental acute rhinitis or colds and was isolated from the experimental disease and again grown in pure cultures. It is apparent that the requirements of specificity have been fulfilled by this organism.”