Toward Victory

For those with weeping noses and stuffy heads came some hopeful news last week. While Britain was giving patulin a tryout (TIME, Nov. 29), U.S. doctors reported three successful attacks on the common cold:

To prevent colds, Pediatrician Joseph Stokes Jr. and Dr. Tzvee N. Harris used propylene glycol vapor (TIME, Nov. 16, 1942) last winter to spray the air of six wards containing 105 children at the Children's Seashore House in Atlantic City. While the wards were being sprayed, three children came down with colds. While the wards were unsprayed, 79 got colds.

Lockheed Aircraft research workers have made a new sulfa drug, desoxyephe-dronium sulfathiazole (a combination of an ephedrine compound which shrinks swollen membranes, and bacteria-fighting sulfathiazole), have treated more than 1,000 Lockheed colds with it. The drug was used as a nose-&-throat spray and as a nasal pack on cotton. Result: "Rather prompt relief." The spray cannot be bought without a prescription.

To prevent the infections which often follow colds, Johns Hopkins Hospital doctors have developed a sulfadiazine spray. Of two groups of nurses, one used the spray; the other group was untreated. Only 9.7% of the sprayed nurses got sinus trouble, 8% wound up with coughs, 1.8% had ear trouble, none got laryngitis or sore throats. Of the unsprayed nurses, 30% developed sinus trouble, 44% had coughs, 4.5% had ear trouble, 2.3% lost their voices and 10% got sore throats.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.