Dothig Dew

The mystery of the common cold is still a mystery. The latest attempt to penetrate the Kleenex curtain ended, as usual, in a sneeze. For 18 months of experiment, volunteer human guinea pigs had sniffled and hawked at Harvard Hospital near Salisbury, England (TIME, Feb. 3). For the greater glory of medicine, they had snuffed up nasal washings containing other people's cold viruses, submitted themselves to ten days of scientific observation.

Last week, the British Ministry of Health announced that the cold virus had not yet been identified. It could not be grown in the laboratory. Nor could it be seen through Britain's most potent microscopes.

The researchers had collared a few random facts, for what they might be worth. The cold virus can stand a lot of cold: it survived temperatures as low as --94DEG Fahrenheit. The virus' diameter is estimated to be one ten-thousandth of a millimeter (about the size of the influenza virus).

The British experimenting will go on. More snuffling volunteers are being invited to spend ten-day "holidays" under observation in Harvard's comfortable hospital cottages. Who minds a red nose, when there is free room & board and three-shillings-a-day spending money?

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