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The Coffin Cure
by Alan E. Nourse
When the discovery was announced, it was Dr. Chauncey Patrick Coffin whoannounced it. He had, of course, arranged with uncanny skill to takemost of the credit for himself. If it turned out to be greater than hehad hoped, so much the better. His presentation was scheduled for thelast night of the American College of Clinical Practitioners' annualmeeting, and Coffin had fully intended it to be a bombshell.
It was. Its explosion exceeded even Dr. Coffin's wilder expectations,which took quite a bit of doing. In the end he had waded through morenewspaper reporters than medical doctors as he left the hall that night.It was a heady evening for Chauncey Patrick Coffin, M.D.
Certain others were not so delighted with Coffin's bombshell.
"It's idiocy!" young Dr. Phillip Dawson wailed in the laboratoryconference room the next morning. "Blind, screaming idiocy. You've goneout of your mind--that's all there is to it. Can't you see what you'vedone? Aside from selling your colleagues down the river, that is?" Heclenched the reprint of Coffin's address in his hand and brandished itlike a broadsword. "'Report on a Vaccine for the Treatment and Cure ofthe Common Cold,' by C. P. Coffin, _et al._ That's what it says--_etal._ My idea in the first place. Jake and I both pounding our heads onthe wall for eight solid months--and now you sneak it into publication afull year before we have any business publishing a word about it."
"Really, Phillip!" Dr. Chauncey Coffin ran a pudgy hand through hissnowy hair. "How ungrateful! I thought for sure you'd be delighted. Anexcellent presentation, I must say--terse, succinct, unequivocal--" heraised his hand--"but _generously_ unequivocal, you understand. Youshould have heard the ovation--they nearly went wild! And the look onUnderwood's face! Worth waiting twenty years for."
"And the reporters," snapped Phillip. "Don't forget the reporters." Hewhirled on the small dark man sitting quietly in the corner. "How aboutthat, Jake? Did you see the morning papers? This thief not only stealsour work, he splashes it all over the countryside in red ink."
Dr. Jacob Miles coughed apologetically. "What Phillip is so stormed upabout is the prematurity of it all," he said to Coffin. "After all,we've hardly had an acceptable period of clinical trial."
"Nonsense," said Coffin, glaring at Phillip. "Underwood and his men wereready to publish their discovery within another six weeks. Where wouldwe be then? How much clinical testing do you want? Phillip, you had theworst cold of your life when you took the vaccine. Have you had anysince?"
"No, of course not," said Phillip peevishly.
"Jacob, how about you? Any sniffles?"
"Oh, no. No colds."
"Well, what about those six hundred students from the University? Did Imisread the reports on them?"
"No--98 per cent cured of active symptoms within twenty-four hours. Nota single recurrence. The results were just short of miraculous." Jakehesitated. "Of course, it's only been a month...."
"Month, year, century! Look at them! Six hundred of the world's mostluxuriant colds, and now not even a sniffle." The chubby doctor sankdown behind the desk, his ruddy face beaming. "Come, now, gentlemen, bereasonable. Think positively! There's work to be done, a great deal ofwork. They'll be wanting me in Washington, I imagine. Press conferencein twenty minutes. Drug houses to consult with. How dare we stand in thepath of Progress? We've won the greatest medical triumph of alltimes--the conquering of the Common Cold. We'll go down in history!"
And he was perfectly right on one point, at least.
They did go down in history.
* * * * *
The public response to the vaccine was little less than monumental. Ofall the ailments that have tormented mankind through history none wasever more universal, more tenacious, more uniformly miserable than thecommon cold. It was a respecter of no barriers, boundaries, or classes;ambassadors and chambermaids snuffled and sneezed in drippy-nosedunanimity. The powers in the Kremlin sniffed and blew and wept genuinetears on drafty days, while senatorial debates on earth-shaking issuespaused reverently upon the unplugging of a nose, the clearing of arhinorrheic throat. Other illnesses brought disability, even death intheir wake; the common cold merely brought torment to the millions as itimplacably resisted the most superhuman of efforts to curb it.
Until that chill, rainy November day when the tidings broke to the worldin four-inch banner heads:
COFFIN NAILS LID ON COMMON COLD
"No More Coughin'" States Co-Finder of Cure
SNIFFLES SNIPED: SINGLE SHOT TO SAVE SNEEZERS
In medical circles it was called the Coffin Multicentric UpperRespiratory Virus-Inhibiting Vaccine; but the papers could never standfor such high-sounding names, and called it, simply, "The Coffin Cure."
Below the banner heads, world-renowned feature writers expounded inreverent terms the story of the leviathan struggle of Dr. ChaunceyPatrick Coffin (_et al._) in solving this riddle of the ages: how, afteryears of failure, they ultimately succeeded in culturing the causativeagent of the common cold, identifying it not as a single virus or groupof viruses, but as a multicentric virus complex invading the soft mucouslinings of the nose, throat and eyes, capable of altering its basicmolecular structure at any time to resist efforts of the body fromwithin, or the physician from without, to attack and dispel it; how thehypothesis was set forth by Dr. Phillip Dawson that the virus could bedestroyed only by an antibody which could "freeze" the virus-complex inone form long enough for normal body defenses to dispose of theoffending invader; the exhausting search for such a "crippling agent,"and the final crowning success after injecting untold gallons ofcold-virus material into the hides of a group of co-operative andforbearing dogs (a species which never suffered from colds, and henceendured the whole business with an air of affectionate boredom).
And finally, the testing. First, Coffin himself (who was suffering aparticularly horrendous case of the affliction he sought to cure); thenhis assistants Phillip Dawson and Jacob Miles; then a multitude ofstudents from the University--carefully chosen for the severity of theirsymptoms, the longevity of their colds, their tendency to acquire themon little or no provocation, and their utter inability to get rid ofthem with any known medical program.
They were a sorry spectacle, those students filing through the Coffinlaboratory for three days in October: wheezing like steam shovels,snorting and sneezing and sniffling and blowing, coughing and squeaking,mute appeals glowing in their blood-shot eyes. The researchers dispensedthe materials--a single shot in the right arm, a sensitivity control inthe left.
With growing delight they then watched as the results came in. Thesneezing stopped; the sniffling ceased. A great silence settled over thecampus, in the classrooms, in the library, in classic halls. Dr.Coffin's voice returned (rather to the regret of his fellow workers) andhe began bouncing about the laboratory like a small boy at a fair.Students by the dozen trooped in for checkups with noses dry and eyesbright.
In a matter of days there was no doubt left that the goal had beenreached.
"But we have to be _sure_," Phillip Dawson had cried cautiously. "Thiswas only a pilot test. We need mass testing now, on an entire community.We should go to the West Coast and run studies there--they have adifferent breed of cold out there, I hear. We'll have to see how longthe immunity lasts, make sure there are no unexpected side effects...."And, muttering to himself, he fell to work with pad and pencil,calculating the program to be undertaken before publication.
But there were rumors. Underwood at Stanford, they said, had alreadycompleted his tests and was preparing a paper for publication in amatter of months. Surely with such dramatic results on the pilot
tests_something_ could be put into print. It would be tragic to lose the racefor the sake of a little unnecessary caution....
Peter Dawson was adamant, but he was a voice crying in the wilderness.Chauncey Patrick Coffin was boss.
Within a week even Coffin was wondering if he had bitten off just atrifle too much. They had expected that demand for the vaccine would begreat--but even the grisly memory of the early days of the Salk vaccinehad not prepared them for the mobs of sneezing, wheezing red-eyed peoplebombarding them for the first fruits.
Clear-eyed young men from the Government Bureau pushed through crowds oflocal townspeople, lining the streets outside the Coffin laboratory,standing in pouring rain to raise insistent placards.
Seventeen