Pass the Aspirin

Before such potent hormones as cortisone and ACTH were discovered, doctors could offer little to victims of rheumatoid arthritis except aspirin--simply, they thought, to ease the pain. But just when cortisone became generally available, researchers made a surprising discovery: far from being a mere painkiller, aspirin has the biological power (like ACTH, but to a lesser degree) of stimulating the adrenal glands to produce their cortisone-like hormones. Still, U.S. doctors took it for granted that cortisone itself must be better, went on prescribing it lavishly (daily cost to U.S. patient: 40-c- to 60-c-).

Last week a joint committee of Britain's Medical Research Council and the Nuffield Foundation reported that in cases of early rheumatoid arthritis, the lowly and inexpensive aspirin (a couple of cents a day) can hold its own. In the British Medical Journal they described the treatment of 30 patients with cortisone for a year, matched against 31 on aspirin. Stage by stage, the two groups stayed even Stephen. At year's end, three-fourths in each group were virtually free of pain and disability, and almost half were able to go back to work. The tests have no bearing on the value of hormones in more advanced arthritis, but in these early cases, say the Britons, "there appears to have been surprisingly little to choose between cortisone and aspirin."

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