Virus X Rides Again

If any patient should know how to take care of herself and obey doctor's orders, it is Manhattan's handsome, blonde Carolyn Diehl. She graduated first in her class ('50) at Cornell University Medical College and married a classmate who is a research physician. As a doctor for personnel at New York Hospital-Cornell, she spends a lot of time telling nurses and student nurses when to stay in bed. But last week Dr. Diehl was dragging around after almost a month of futile attempts to cure herself of an unidentified virus.

Such is the nature of the respiratory infection that this year hit New York (other big U.S. cities have their own brands): it is far worse than a cold, but not quite bad enough to make busy people stay long in bed; it deceptively lets up so that even medically expert victims think themselves on the mend, but then it strikes again.

Treacherous Delay. The disease is not influenza. The guilty microbe is usually called "virus x" by laymen, and that is as good a term as any, for the virus is truly an unknown quantity. It apparently comes in scores or possibly hundreds of forms.

New York City's currently unpopular brand of virus x is unusual mainly in its treacherous, delayed-fuse character. Dr. Diehl's case began in mid-February with a sore throat that burned all the way down into her chest. The next day she went to her office, but felt seedy, flushed and achy. It hurt her to move her eyes. Her temperature went up to 100.5. Dr. Diehl prescribed aspirin for herself.

The third day she quit work at noon, went to bed. Yet it took two more days of fever, coughing, sore throat and painful eyes before Carolyn Diehl got alarmed enough to call in another doctor. He prescribed an antibiotic (tetracycline) to guard against a second, bacterial infection, and an antihistaminic (Chlor-Trimeton), and told her to breathe humid air as much as possible. She did--by sitting in a rocking chair next to a hot shower for half an hour at a stretch. Her son Marc, 6, came down with a similar but milder case; mother and son shared a room, with three croup kettles steaming through the night.

Hard on Young Adults. Not until a week had passed, and the first severe symptoms had subsided, did the virus take its expected course and give Dr. Diehl a stuffy head and runny nose. She went back to work--imprudently--and then went back on tetracycline. It took another week for her to feel human again. Other victims who tried to shoulder a full work load too soon got into more serious trouble. One Manhattan physician developed a double viral pneumonia, with a fever of 104, and coughed up blood.

Virus x seems to be hardest on young adults and those in middle life. The virologists checked everything in their culture tubes and were still baffled. About the only advice doctors could feel certain of was: do not go back to work too soon.

For virus x there is no vaccine, no specific drug treatment--only rest, warmth, humidity, a soft diet and lots of fluids.

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