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

  • Mackenzie, Morell, 1837-1892.
Date:
1887
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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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    V- by Dr. Roe,i Professor Hack,^ Dr. Harrison Allen,^ and Dr. J. N. Mackenzie.'* The views of these practitioners will be considered in detail further on ; but it may be stated here, in general terms, that the doctrine that hay fever depends on chronic disease of the nose is open to the following funda- mental objections, [ci) that only an insignificant proportion of the many sufferers from nasal disease are affected by the pollen of plants ; {U) that in many of the worst cases of hay fever there is absolutely no evidence, objective or subjective, of disease within the nose; {c) that the pathological theory entirely ignores the racial limitation of the disease ; (d) that the new doctrine altogether fails to account for the limitation of the com- plaint to one, or at most two, brief seasons of the year, a circum- stance which of itself marks off hay fever by a scientific frontier” from the whole motley host of ailments which, accord- ing to the teaching at present fashionable in certain quarters, take origin from a disordered nose. This limitation is so evident that even the literature of the disease participates in it and bursts into bloom yearly with the flowers and grasses, fading away again with them and dying with the “ last rose of summer,” or its American equivalent in the “ fall.” Dr. Sajous,® though agreeing in practice with the writers just mentioned, differs from them in theory, inasmuch as he fully accepts the doctrine that hay fever is caused by pollen acting on a specially sensitive mucous membrane. He claims to cure the disease by destroying the “ sensibility of the parts to the foreign elements which excite ” it. One of the cases which he relates is in itself a refutation of the view ' “Pathology and Radical Cure of Hay Fever.” New York, 1S83, and “ Second Article ” reprinted from the New York Medical Journal. Appleton, New York, 1884. ’ “Wien. Med. Wochenschrift.” 1882-83. ^ “ American Jour. Med. Sci.” Jan. 1884. ^ “N.Y. Med. Record.” July 19 and Oct. 18, 1884. Dr, Fletcher Ingalls (“ Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner,” 1885) also supports the pathological theory, ’ “ Med and Surg. Reporter.” Dec. 22, 1883.