1887.] NEW-YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 63 



A., was the first to publish any observed data on this subject, 

 in 1881, when he clearly established the important fact that Hay 

 Asthma was due in numerous instances to intra-nasal hypertro- 

 phies ; and further, that the cure of these was followed by the 

 disappearance of the disease. This position he ably supported 

 at the International Medical Congress of 1884. Corroborative 

 testimony to the same effect was given on this occasion by Dr. 

 Roe, of Rochester ; and numerous writers have since confirmed 

 this view. At the same congress, Dr. Bosworth, of New York, 

 recorded the important case, in which a foreign body had been 

 impacted in the nose for many years, and had given rise to Hay 

 Fever over a period of eight years. Dr. Bosworth adds, ' The 

 attacks disappeared on removal of the stone' (Transactions of 

 the International Congress, eighth session, Copenhagen, vol. iv., 

 p. no)." 



And on p. 75, " Now the conditions present in the nose of a 

 patient prone to Hay Fever are, according to the author's observa- 

 tions, one of two kinds, both of which implicate this tear-flowing 

 zone. Either there is ethmoiditis in an early stage, often with 

 very little enlargement of the spongy process — though this may, 

 however, be very marked — but showing a glazed or shiny sur- 

 face from loss of its epithelial covering, this denuded surface 

 being readily irritated by external causes, and resenting these 

 by excitation of normal reflexes ; or there exists a narrow con- 

 formation of the nose — which may be quite natural, and possi- 

 bly congenital — in which the opposing surfaces of the septum and 

 middle spongy bones lie in near approximation throughout, and 

 in some places actually touch each other. Such a nose as this 

 last described might present even to a careful observer nothing 

 to suggest abnormality. And yet it is abundantly clear that the 

 close contact of sensitive surfaces designed normally for free ex- 

 posure in the breathway, whether induced by disease or con- 

 genital formation, must compress, and therefore become a 

 source of irritation to the delicate nerve-fibrillae with which their 

 investing membrane is endowed. 



" Perhaps this latter fact may explain the observation that the 

 disease under discussion is most prevalent among the aristo- 

 cratic classes, who are generally accredited with the possession of 

 that refined contour and delicate 'chiselling' of the nasal organ^ 

 which necessarily diminishes the space for the internal struc- 



