Common Cold Unit
The Common Cold Unit or Common Cold Research Unit was a unit of the British Medical [Research Council (UK)|Medical Research Council] which undertook laboratory and epidemiological research on the common cold between 1946 and 1989 and produced 1,006 papers. The unit studied etiology, epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of common colds. It utilised Harvard Hospital, near Salisbury, a redundant Second World War-duration emergency infectious diseases field-hospital at Harnham Down.
Common colds account for a third of all acute respiratory infections and the economic costs are substantial in terms of sick leave. The public-facing side of the CCU involved continually recruiting human volunteers, by advertising. Volunteers were housed at the hospital, for typically ten-days while participating in common cold trials. Some degree of isolation from each other was enforced as well as restrictions on leaving the site.
Human coronaviruses, which are responsible for about 10% of common colds, were first isolated from volunteers at the unit in 1965. The unit closed in 1990. The site was later redeveloped and absorbed into the city of Salisbury, although there is memorial plaque referring to its former use as the Harvard Hospital.
History
Previous research and establishment
In 1914, German bacteriologist Dr. Walther Kruse showed that nasal secretions from people with colds could be filtrated to make them free from bacteria; and, that inoculation of those filtrated washes into the nose of other people caused the same illness. It was the first direct evidence that colds were an infectious disease and that they were caused by something other than bacteria.Christopher Andrewes and David Tyrrell refined these experiments at the former Harvard Hospital site in Salisbury, England. Around 1946 it became the Common Cold Unit of the Medical Research Council. It was set up by the Medical Research Council after Dr. Andrewes promoted the idea of researches on volunteers and persuaded authorities to set up the research station.
Harvard Hospital site
The Harvard hospital was a former Second World War emergency hospital and later U.S. military hospital at Harnham Down near Salisbury, in Wiltshire. It was built, in the early 1940s, within an Emergency Hospital building programme. France had fallen and there was a fear of the spread of infectious diseases and this hospital was specifically set up to address that threat.It was part-funded, built, equipped and operated with the combined support of both the US Red Cross and Havard University. Its buildings included wooden prefabricated buildings brought over from the USA by ship. It had fewer beds than other emergency hospitals set up under the UKs emergency hospital-building programme, but contained a fully-equipped emergency public health laboratory to handle infectious diseases.
It was sited close to Salisbury to treat American troop casualties being brought back from Europe, as there was a lack of suitable hospital facilities in this area. The Red Cross and Harvard University later pulled their staff out; and the Hospital was staffed by US Army personnel until 1945, when Red Cross and Harvard University donated the hospital back to the United Kingdom Public Health authorities.
The now-empty hospital became the Common Cold Unit.
Use of Volunteers
Thirty volunteers were required every fortnight during Common Cold trial periods. The unit advertised in newspapers and magazines for volunteers, who were paid a small amount. A stay at the unit was presented in these advertisements as an unusual holiday opportunity.The volunteers were infected with preparations of cold viruses and typically stayed for ten days. They were housed in small groups of two or three, with each group strictly isolated from the others during the course of the stay. Volunteers were allowed to go out for walks in the countryside south of Salisbury, but residential areas were out of bounds.