Hay fever : its causes, treatment, and effective prevention : experimental researches / by Chas. Harrison Blackley.

Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hay fever : its causes, treatment, and effective prevention : experimental researches / by Chas. Harrison Blackley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    dyspnoea, especially on lying down, attended by a very slight ropy and clear secretion in the trachea. ... I make very little doubt, also, that these same catarrhal disturbances of summer are of more frequent occurrence under a less distinct form, namely, that of aggravation of affections which, in some decree, the sufferer considers as habitual, and almost natural to him. One cannot travel without incurring ophthalmia, another asthma. Many suffer in particular localities, or seem to require peculiar circumstances to secure tolerable ease. The above considerations, and my own experience, make me conclude that none of the affections are positively and necessarily confined to any season, or such a specific cause as hay or ipecacuanha/ § 34. This writer evidently confounds ordinary catarrh and asthma with hay-fever, and if he suffered at all from the latter disorder he was labouring under a mistake .in supposing that it could come on at any time of the year independent of any specific influence such as he names. There is one point however which Mr. King notices in his remarks, in another part of his paper which I have not quoted, in which, although contrary to the opinion generally entertained, his observations will, I think, be found to be very correct, so far, at any rate, as regards hay-fever. In speaking of the structures affected in this disease, he says: 'I make some exception to the conclusions of Dr. Bostock, that the air cells of the lungs are especially affected; and I prefer to set down the dyspnoea as the result of turgescence in the lining membranes of the air tubes.' So far as hay-asthma is concerned I hope to be able to show that this view of the case is more in accordance with facts than that which is generally held by the writers on hay-fever. § 35. Dr. G. T. Gream, who was also affected with the disorder, did not believe that it was owing to any strictly specific cause, and held that the farina (pollen) of grass had ' Qo more influence in causing the disease than that of any other flowers/ He says: ' The dust from beaten carpets, from the roads, and from other sources, produces the same distressing symptoms/ He also further remarks, ' I am led to think that in the middle of summer, from the end of May 2—2