322 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



ALLERGY OR PHENOMENA OF 

 HYPERSENSIBILITY 



Ralph W. Natjss, M. D., Illinois Department of Public 

 Health, Springfield 



Hypersensitiveness in man may follow after both the 

 enteral and parenteral introduction of many and varied 

 substances. These inducing substances may be antigenic 

 or non-antigenic in character, i.e., those which stimulate 

 or those which do not stimulate the production of demon- 

 strable antibodies. The response to these substances in 

 man are usually thought of as due to personal idiosyn- 

 cracy and the symptoms, however diverse the inciting 

 agents may be, have a great deal of similarity. The 

 term allergy, meaning literally altered energy or work, 

 was first introduced by Von Pirquet after whom the well 

 known skin test in tuberculosis has been named. Coca 1 

 has suggested that this term allergy be applied only to 

 the phenomena of hypersensibility in which the reaction 

 is not due to antigen-antibody combination, or at least 

 where the antigenic property has no direct bearing on 

 the reaction. 



Symptoms elicited in man by the introduction of ser- 

 ums with or without antitoxin may, according to Parke 2 , 

 be divided into those following first the initial injection 

 and second, those following the second or later injections. 

 These reactions have nothing to do with the antibody 

 content of the injected serum. Following the first in- 

 jection three types of reactions may be noted: 



(a) Collapse with or without fatal outcome; 



(b) A symptom-complex termed " serum sickness", 

 and finally — 



(c) Local necrosis. 



Each of these forms of response may also follow the 

 second or later injections. 



Gollo.pse or Death. — This accident is rare and nearly 

 always occurs after the first injection. The symptoms 

 appear quickly after administration. According to the 

 most reliable statistics, about 1 in 20,000 primary in- 

 jections of antitoxin results in alarming symptoms (in 

 about 1 out of 50,000 injections death occurs), the out- 



