Armstrong – Table of Contents

Dr. Charles Armstrong, who was now the Chief emeritus, “I did not see any common
colds at Lorton.”
The author was uncertain what decision process occurred at that time, or by
whom, but shortly thereafter Drs. Charles Armstrong and Robert Huebner, the author’s
immediate superior, delegated (ordered) the author to conduct an independent study,
using the volunteers at Lorton, to determine whether there was an infectious agent in
Atlas’ eggs capable of producing the syndrome of the common cold. (The role of Dr.
Karl Habel—who succeeded Dr. Armstrong as Chief of the Laboratory in 1948—in this
situation was not clear.) In order to accomplish this, the author designed a double blind,
controlled study in the volunteers using “infected” and non-infected fluid from fertilized
eggs. The two experimental volunteer groups were housed in separate wards of the prison
infirmary. The author then examined the volunteers daily for 10 days making detailed
observations and clinical notes about each participant. At the end of the study observation
period, there were no observed clinical differences between the two groups; possibly
more symptoms occurred in those volunteers who had received the control fluids. Of
course, the author did not know which group had received which inoculum until the study
code was broken. During the study, the author noticed that the assistant, Costello, was
making suggestive, prompting statements to the patients; the author demanded that he
stop this practice or leave the ward. The results of this study cast doubt on all the
previously recorded uncontrolled trials among the volunteers.
The next step in the process of probing the existence of the elusive “cold virus
agent” was to determine the validity of the quantitative chemical test. The author also
executed this step as a double blind, controlled study. Inoculums from “infected” and