Is It Catching?

Though the majority of U.S. doctors now agree that the common cold is caused by a virus, there is still a vigorous minority which vociferously argues exactly the opposite. In Boston's ancient, creaky Mechanics' Building last week, one of the most vigorous of the dissenters appeared before a panel meeting of the American College of Physicians. Introduced as a prime "rebel" against the accepted theories, the University of California's Dr. William J. Kerr promptly retorted that he was proud of the title. Then he proceeded to justify it with a slashing attack on the virus theorists.

"Colds are afflictions rather than infections," said ruddy, husky Dr. Kerr flatly. "I do not believe .that a great majority of the diseases of the upper respiratory tract are virus infections like flu or grippe--most of them are 'just colds.' "

As evidence that "you don't catch a cold--you have it," Dr. Kerr told how he and fellow workers at the University of California tried to infect subjects with another person's cold. People without colds would play cards or work jigsaw puzzles for hours next to a sneezing, sniffling victim; others drank from glasses smeared with a cold sufferer's sputum. Even so, said Dr. Kerr, his healthy subjects failed to catch colds.

On the other hand, Dr. Kerr argued: "The fact that a cold is not transmitted from person to person by a virus is shown by the fact that a person living on the top of a mountain, 100 miles from any other human being, will still 'catch cold' if he gets chilled."

Dr. Kerr's own theory is that physical surroundings, especially temperature changes, cause colds, but that the possibilities have been neglected by single-minded bacteriologists who are more interested in proving that bacteria or viruses are the cause. In short, said Dr. Kerr: "A cold is simply a failure to react to an overall cooling of the body ... A cold is no more infectious than a toothache. The terms Viruses' and 'allergic states' are medical escape terms."

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