BY W. H. GEDDINGS, M.D.
SYNONYMS.—Hay fever; Hay cold; Summer catarrh; Catarrhus æstivus (Bostock); Freuhsommer katarrh (Phoebus); Autumnal catarrh (Wyman); Rose cold; June cold; Pollen fever; Pollen catarrh (Blackley). Fr. Catarrh de foin; Catarrh d'été; Ger. Roggen Asthma.
DEFINITION.—A form of catarrh caused by some irritant floating in the atmosphere; appearing in the spring, early summer, or autumn; attacking persons predisposed every year at the same time, the patient being at other periods free from the disease; characterized by symptoms resembling those of influenza, the chief of which are sneezing, redness, swelling, and increased secretion of the conjunctivæ and of the mucous membrane of the whole respiratory tract from its commencement in the nostrils down to the finest bronchi; frequently culminating in more or less severe attacks of asthma.
HISTORY.—Bostock, an English physician, is entitled to the credit of having been the first to recognize and describe this peculiar affection, for although, prior to his time, Heberden1 had alluded to symptoms which are now supposed to be referable to hay asthma, and Cullen had noted the fact that some persons have asthma oftener in summer than in winter, neither of these writers recognized the true nature of the disease.
1 Commentary on the History and Cure of Diseases, 4th ed., London, 1816, chap. "Destillatio," p. 113.
Bostock's first description of hay asthma appeared in the form of a paper, "Case of a Periodical Affection of the Eyes and Chest," which he read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society in London in 1819.2 This was a description of his own case. Nine years later he gave the details of 18 additional cases and mentioned 10 others.3 In the second paper, having noticed that the disease as known to him, the American rose or June cold, prevailed only in the late spring and early summer, he styled it catarrhus æstivus. Rejecting the popular theory, that hay asthma is due to the emanations from hay, flowers, etc., he maintained that heat was the real cause of the disease.
2 Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, London, 1819, pp. 161–165.
3 Ibid., London, 1828, pp. 437–446.
It appears singular, in view of its frequency at the present time, that notwithstanding the attention which had been directed to it only 18 cases should have been collected during the nine years which intervened between the publication of the first and second articles by Bostock, and tends to prove that in those days the disease could not have been as common as at present. That this was indeed the case is rendered all the more probable by the indisputable fact that, owing to the more general education of the people and to the requirements of a so-called advanced civilization, other nervous diseases are certainly much more frequent than they were formerly. The great prevalence of hay asthma among the educated is a further proof of the correctness of this conclusion. It must, however, be remembered that diagnosis did not then occupy the position it now does, and it is not unlikely that it was often overlooked or confounded with other diseases.