Grandma Was Right

Two doctors who ran a careful, scientific study on 159 sniffling children, victims of the common cold, told last week what they found to be the best treatment. Grandma and the horse & buggy doctor were right, they concluded. The most effective answer is bed rest, with plenty of fluids and maybe aspirin; the modern wonder drugs do more harm than good.

At Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Drs. Howard S. Traisman and L. Martin Hardy reported to the Illinois State Medical Society, 55 of the children got only the old-fashioned treatment; 37 got a sulfa drug in addition, and similar groups received one of two antibiotics. Children in the standard-treatment group got well faster than the others; when they had complications (such as ear infections and pneumonia), these showed up sooner and were cleared up earlier with the proper drugs.

The doctors believed that the sulfas and antibiotics delayed the appearance of complications and may have masked them so that they became harder to treat. Their conclusion: the wonder drugs should never be given for the cold itself, but saved for possible complications.

Said Dr. Hardy: "It is a sad commentary on our professional integrity and honesty when antibiotic or chemotherapeutic agents are prescribed for an undefined illness in order to placate anxious parents and [allay] our own insecurity."

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Dr. Pierce Theobald, an ear, nose and throat specialist, added another count to the indictment. One kind of deafness is increasing, he believes, as a result of the haphazard use of antibiotics in colds. If there is a middle-ear infection, the drugs may mask it, and then part of the ear fills up with fluid anyway. If this is not drained, it may solidify and impair hearing. The only solution, said Dr. Theobald, is to puncture the eardrum and remove the substance.

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