HEALTH AND DISEASE 36 1 



Ragweed is an unsightly, troublesome plant, good for just one thing — to 

 make an outstanding contribution to the population's stuffy nose. In some 

 eastern sections it is the giant ragweed that is the main offender^ in other 

 parts of the country it is the short ragweed. 



Its generic name is Aiiibrosia. Linnaeus chose for it this label of the 

 immortality-giving food of the Gods. John Burroughs regarded the high- 

 sounding name in another light. He said: "It must be the food of the Gods, 

 if anything, for as far as I have observed nothing terrestrial eats it — not even 

 billy goats." 



It is an easy jump from billy goats to the vacant lots and dumping places 

 of our big cities. Right in these vacant lots, beside apartment houses, behind 

 bill boards, along railways, in factory districts, in detached residential de- 

 velopments, there are large areas of neglected weed-grown land. Dense 

 growths of ragweed, sometimes ten feet high, are found along the banks 

 of canals and rivers. 



In a survey made in Chicago, there were pieces of empty land adding up 

 to 20 thousand acres, all supporting a luxuriant growth of ragweed. It was 

 calculated by scientists, who set pollen catchers — plates covered with 

 sticky substances — in outlying residential districts and on top of Chicago's 

 tallest skyscraper, that hundreds of tons of ragweed pollen were liberated 

 each year within the city limits. In mid-city you are as open to attack as 

 if you had gone into the highways and hedges to look for it. 



Allergists are a cautious lot. Some maintain that if a whole state were 

 cleared of ragweed plants, not more than seventy-five percent, of the at- 

 mospheric pollen would be reduced. Replacements would drift in on the 

 wind from nearby states. But the most pessimistic analyst of the situation 

 will admit that the sufferer is surely better off if the pollen-shedding weeds 

 growing within a few hundred feet of his residence are eliminated. 



Cutting down exposure is a gigantic task. It has, at times, claimed the 

 attention of whole cities. Ordinances have been passed, and brigades of 

 interested people have carried out intensive cutting and pulling campaigns. 

 But cities and citizens alike usually have worked at it for a while — then 

 rested on their implements and said "Well, what's the use — the stuff just 

 keeps on coming back!" 



Hay fever is new among recognized diseases, but we find mention of 

 discomfort due to contact with plants in medical writing for the past 400 

 years. We cannot back up our suspicions as to the antiquity of hay fever 

 with museum specimens gleaned from a buried city, an Indian mound or an 

 Aztec temple. People do not die from eczema, hives or hay fever, even to- 

 day. Hives leave no trace on a mummy. Asthma — the allergic kind — is 

 closely related to hay fever, and Aretaeus, a Roman, first recognized asthma 

 as a disease about a. d. 500. 



Thomas Phaer, who died in 1560, wrote of "Nesying out of Measure." 

 He said: "It is good to stoppe it, to avoyde a further inconvenience." He 



