Medicine: Opium for Colds

With patents on the drug combinations assured to control commercial exploitation. University of Minnesota medical authorities last week published in the Journal of the American Medical Association a treatment for colds which has proved efficacious among the students. The drugs are all derivatives of opium. Combinations of codeine with papaverine, dilaudid with papaverine and morphine with papaverine are equally effective.

Dr. Harold Sheely Diehl, who was led to the study of opium derivatives by ”the consistently good results I obtained in the treatment of my own colds with morphine,” recommends the codeine papaverine combination. “That combination,” said he last week, “seems most desirable because of the high percentage of good results obtained with it, its low toxicity, and the absence of danger, or at least of ‘practical danger,’ of habituation to it.” One dose contains one-quarter grain codeine and one-quarter grain papaverine.* Dosages vary with a cold victim’s weight from one pill after breakfast and two at bedtime to one pill after each meal and four at bedtime. This dosage has cured colds in 75 out of 100 people, says Dr. Diehl. His cures include the 35 out of 100 who would recover from a cold with no treatment whatsoever. This high percentage of spontaneous cures excites him to sarcasm: “That is why it is possible to convince the public that practically any preparation is of value for the prevention or treatment of colds. In fact, some of the comments that were made by persons who had received only lactose [milk-sugar] tablets would serve admirably as testimonials concerning the value of these tablets for the treatment of colds.” No better, according to his experience, are aspirin, aspirin-acetphenetidin-caffeine combinations, or alkalization with bicarbonate of soda.

*Doctors may prescribe these drugs without reference to the University’s patents.