Hay fever : its cause and treatment in the light of recent investigations

Abstract

It folìovs from tisis short study of Dunbar's work and results that the opinion. of Eeard and others that a specific would never be 1o_. id to =revert or relieve hay fever all cases, can fortunately be now believed to be false. The exciting cause appears from a consideration of the foregoih to Le a similar, if not an iridentical one, for the disease wherever it occurs, and therefore the antitoxin which neutralises this cause - this toxin - outside the body, so long as the toxin remains l o a l on the mucous membranes and there- fore accessible. Through these recent researches science has onìee mere given to practical medicine a valuable remedial agent; in this case for a disease which .reviousiy w7.s one of the most disnppointin,^; in treatment it is to be hoped that the value of antitoxin serum treatment will be yet more widely test eat in tile. coming hay fever period, and the results carefully recorded, in orf_er that stat i'tics drawn from a very l' rge nul..ser of cases may be o'tained and the ques ,lai of hay fever's etiology and therapeutics be set upon a still surer foundation.