Medicine: Cold Comfort

Penicillin is not supposed to work against viruses—but it has been working fine against the common cold, which is often caused by a virus. During the past few months, many cold sufferers who wouldn’t know a virus if one sneezed in their faces have felt better after sniffing penicillin dust up their noses from little plastic inhalers.

No one is certain yet just why penicillin dust works on colds. But last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association published a cautious and belated plug lor a treatment that has already become popular. A group of doctors who tried inhaled penicillin dust on 169 cold patients reported that it helped 80%. Often the patients’ noses came unplugged and they could breathe more easily immediately after the treatment.

Penicillin dust also worked on other respiratory troubles. In some cases painful sore throats stopped hurting half an hour after the dust hit the spot.

Doctors do not attribute penicillin’s success to its effect on a cold virus. It probably affects only the bacteria that flourish in the tissues disorganized by the virus. Whatever it does, it seems to help.