Hay fever and paroxysmal sneezing : their etiology and treatment with an appendix on rose cold / by Morell Mackenzie.

  • Mackenzie, Morell, 1837-1892.
Date:
1887
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hay fever and paroxysmal sneezing : their etiology and treatment with an appendix on rose cold / by Morell Mackenzie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    certain, that though transient irritation of the mucous membrane may occasionally be caused by simple dust, pollen is in fact the true inateries morhi of summer catarrh. In 1876 a short treatise was published by the late Dr. Beard,’- of New York, in which he dealt with the complaint as it is met with in the United States. His information was col- lected chiefly by circulars after the manner of Phoebus; but, more fortunate than the German inquirer. Beard had himself seen and treated many cases. He received replies from over two hundred patients, and on these data he came to the con- clusion that the immediate exciting causes are more than thirty in number, and that further investigations may extend the number of secondary causes to fifty or even a hundred. Beard showed clearly from his statistics that a large propor- tion of the sufferers are of nervous temperament, and that nerve-tonics are of considerable value in the treatment of the affection. In 1877 an important essay appeared from the pen of Dr. Marsh,® in which, whilst accepting the pollen theory in general, he endeavoured to prove that in America the pollen of the Roman wormwood was the only one which excited the com- plaint. Marsh also made some interesting comparisons between the effects of the Rhus toxicodendron on the skin, and those of pollen on the mucous membrane. In the year 1882 an entirely new doctrine was put forward. Ignoring external or atmospheric causes. Dr. Daly,^ of Pittsburg, maintained that the etiology of the complaint was to be found in the intrinsic conditions of the nose, and he reported three cases of hay fever which had been cured by surgical treatment. He has since been followed, though with some differences of opinion, in the same line, ' “ Hay Fever, or Summer Catarrh.” New York, 1876. ^ “Hay Fever, or Pollen-poisoning.” Read before the New Jersey State Medical Society, 1877; reprinted from the Transactions of the Society. Newark, N.J., 1877. ’ “Archives of Laryngology,” vol. iii. p. 157. 1882. B 2