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

  • Blackley, Charles Harrison, 1820-1900.
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 King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    1 32 Experimental Researches on Hay-Fever. § 57. In considering the evidence which has been brought in favour of the various substances which have been already- noticed as being the active agents in producing hay-fever. Dr, Phoebus draws attention to the fact that some authors and some patients accuse one agent and some another; but no one, he says, ‘has accused these agents en masse; and, although some experiments have been tried with one or another of these, no one has yet pursued a systematic course of experiments which, on the one hand, would prove that the presence of any given noxious agent (or supposed exciting cause) was always followed by an attack of the disorder; and, on the other hand, that the absence of this same agent has always given complete freedom from the attacks. Another source of error, Dr. Phoebus thinks, lies in the circumstance that ‘ as soon as one of these noxious agents has caused its effect, the symptoms of the intensity W of the disorder have shown themselves immediately,’ and it H has almost always been overlooked that the symptoms of |H ‘ the stage of development ’ had already preceded these, and the patients have thus taken the more complete form of the disease for the beginning of it. ‘ If people in future,’ he says, ‘ will be more attentive and especially observe more than one patient carefully, the author does not doubt that the accusation against these noxious agents will, in greater part, fall to the ground.’ § 5(S. Whilst recognising the fact that the attacks of hay- fever occur during the time that the greatest number of the natural and artificial grasses are in bloom, and that the duration of the disease is synchronous with the period of flowering. Dr. Phoebus thinks that the proofs which some authors have brought have shown ‘ that this or that noxious acrent of the grasses is not the only cause of the access, obvious in all cases,’ and with regard to these he says: ‘ Such proofs were formerly very desirable, but have now lost much in value, for we now know that more than one of these noxious agents is accused, with apparently good reasons, whilst the first heat of summer, however, is a stronger cause than all the grass emanations put together.’ He then goes on to say: ‘I have already shown that the | ]
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