DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyh134 Commentary: MRC Patulin trial

The MRC Patulin trial1 was undertaken in 1943–1944 to investigate a proposed remedy for the common cold. Only a few clinical trials took place before the second world war and they often had serious defects of planning or execution. The Patulin trial, it is claimed, was the first to meet the rigorous requirements for a scientifically acceptable trial with concurrent controls, as set out originally by Bradford Hill2,3 in 1937. The findings were dis-appointing; the treatment had no detectable effect on the natural course of the disease. Not surprisingly, Patulin as a cold cure has long since been forgotten, but the huge step forward in method-ology demonstrated in this trial was also not generally recognized or remembered until recently. Credit for the advance was given instead to the first MRC trial of streptomycin in pulmonary tuberculosis4 three years later in 1946–1947. In that trial strepto-mycin showed substantial but temporary benefits, and two majo