As a suggestion to those who may wish to follow the subject of hay fever in its recent interesting developments, chapters have been added on the old conception of gout, the new theory of anaphylaxis and treatment by diet, by pollen extracts and by bacterial vaccines.
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| [I.] | The Diagnosis | 9 |
| [II.] | Rosin-weed | 14 |
| [III.] | Ichthyol and the Point in the Naso-pharynx that Controls the Symptoms | 17 |
| [IV.] | Menthol and Eucalyptol | 20 |
| [V.] | The Faradic Current and Other Forms of Electricity | 27 |
| [VI.] | Hay Fever as Urticaria | 38 |
| [VII.] | Dr. Gueneau de Mussy. Hay Fever as Urticaria Again | 44 |
| [VIII.] | Hay Fever as Gout | 51 |
| [IX.] | The Uric Acid Theory | 66 |
| [X.] | Hay Fever as Anaphylaxis | 76 |
| [XI.] | Immunizing with Pollen Extracts | 91 |
| [XII.] | The Bacterial Vaccines | 108 |
| [XIII.] | Diet | 113 |
| [XIV.] | Rosin-weed Again. Historical and Pharmacological | 123 |
THE TREATMENT OF HAY FEVER
CHAPTER I
THE DIAGNOSIS
Under the name "hay fever" I include rose-cold and the so-called hyperæsthetic catarrh or vaso-motor rhinitis, all characterized by intense itching of the eyes, nose, and throat, free discharge, sometimes asthma, the attacks being precipitated by strong odors, dust, or pollen. There are many forms of the disease, some occurring in May or June, some as early as March, before the budding of vegetation, some even in the winter; but the large majority of cases occur in August, coincident with the flowering of late summer vegetation, notably the rag-weed and golden-rod. It is not so well known that the California privet, so widely used in hedges and parks, aggravates many patients, especially in June and July, when the scent of the flowers is strong. Others are irritated instantly by the odor of crude oil that is spread so freely on the roads in summer, by metal-dust, and by the cinders of a railway trip. Some patients are sensitive to one irritant, some to many irritants. I knew one man whose itching of the eyes began in March, nose and throat following in April and May, cough in July and August, who was sensitive to each and all of these irritants from March to October every year for thirty years.
If we follow the modern tendency and classify the cases according to the specific irritant, we shall have an endless number of varieties according to the endless number of possible irritants; and where will you classify the man who is subject to them all? In the present state of our knowledge, it seems better to regard the sensitiveness to irritants as the characteristic of these cases and to think of them as different forms of the same disease. In most text-books this idea is expressed by the terms hyperæsthetic catarrh and vaso-motor rhinitis; but there are serious pathological objections to the terms catarrh and rhinitis. These objections and the reasons for regarding the lesion as an angioneurotic œdema are discussed in Chapter VI, on Hay Fever as Urticaria, to which the reader is referred.