Medicine: The Common Cold

Dr. Thomas G. Ward is a persistent man. Virology expert at Johns Hopkins University, he has spent the better part of the past three years looking for a cure for the common cold. In Chicago last week, at a conference of the Common Cold Foundation, he was obliged to report that he is still on the old, cold trail. “Personally,” he said, “my favorite treatment is old Maryland rock-and-rye.”*

* A longtime Baltimore favorite. A Johns Hopkins tradition attributes the following informal prescription to the great Dr. William Osier: 1) hang a hat on the bedpost, 2) go to bed and drink rock-and-rye until there are two hats on the bedpost.