Eduff?

Story has it that Columnist F.P.A. (Franklin Pierce Adams) when told that the Rockefeller Foundation had appropriated a huge sum for research on the cause & cure of the common cold, remarked: "Dat's dot eduff."*

On reading an optimistic London dispatch about a new British cold cure last week, U.S. doctors could only wonder whether the cure would be eduff or dot. The drug: patulin, a crystalline substance made, like penicillin, from mold.

In the cable summary from the latest Lancet, patulin sounded better than any cold drug yet discovered: the British Navy tried it last winter on a large scale, cured 57% of colds in 48 hours; only 9.4% of untreated colds got well that quickly.

Patulin's value as an anti-cold drug was discovered by chance. Professor W. E. Gye, Director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, happened to be in bed with a cold when he received some patulin to be used in cancer research. He took some just to see what it would do. To his surprise, he was well the next day.

The British say patulin can be made easily and cheaply. But they will not release it for general use until more tests have been made. No U.S. doctor even knows what mold it is made of. Some comments: "The only thing that will cure a cold is rest in bed"; "never heard of it"; "there may be something in it."

* Said F. P. A., who last week had a common cold: "I dever sed id."

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