Medicine: Colds

Common colds are infectious and are probably due to an ultramicroscopic germ. These are the findings of Dr. Peter K. Olitsky and Dr. J. E. McCartney, of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, after four years of experiments on human volunteers. Filtered washings from the noses of cold sufferers were injected into healthy persons, who promptly developed colds, which were in turn transmissable. The causative germ could not be seen, although cultures were grown from the secretions of 40 patients. Either the germ is so small that it cannot be seen through the most powerful magnification (about 1,500 times), or the right cultures for its food requirements were not found. Germs which will pass through an earthenware filter are called " filterable viruses." Dr. Olitsky previously collaborated in the discovery of the supposed influenza bacterium (TIME, March 17). It is wholly distinct the germ of the common cold.