

HYPERSUSCEPTIBILITY 371 



' ' that the tendency is inherited as a dominant characteristic. ' ' The 

 question of whether or not hay fever is a phase of protein sensitiza- 

 tion, then, cannot be answered either affirmatively or negatively at 

 the present time. It is accompanied by cutaneous sensitiveness to 

 pollen extracts and, according to Cooke and Vander Veer, subcu-. 

 taneous injections of such extracts into sensitive individuals may 

 produce a general eruption. On the basis of its heredity, Cooke and 

 Vander Veer and Coca 58 remove the hay fever complex from the 

 class of protein anaphylaxis. Coca claims in addition that pollen 

 extracts are not anti genie in the ordinary sense , of the word, but 

 in this he is mistaken, since Mrs. Parker in our laboratory recently 

 proved that extracts made by us, as well as the ones used by Cooke 

 and Vander Veer, could be used as anaphylactic antigens if the 

 methods of sensitization and of test were sufficiently delicate. 



DRUG IDIOSYNCRASIES. Abnormal sensitiveness to many drugs be- 

 longing to almost all chemical classes of substances, inorganic and 

 organic, has been noted for years by clinicians. Among them are 

 morphin, strychnin, atropin, salicylates, halogens, and their com- 

 pounds, salvarsan, etc. These substances are obviously not antigenic 

 in the ordinary sense. The hypersusceptibility is generally specific 

 at least for the chemical group, and it seems to be a fact that the 

 reaction elicited in the individual does not represent exaggerated 

 symptoms of the physiological effects of the drugs, but are, in a 

 general way, alike, whatever the drug used. The symptoms usually 

 come on rapidly, within a few hours or days, and consist in various 

 kinds of skin rashes, and fever. In such cases, where salvarsan, 

 iodin, etc., preparations have been used, there may be marked and 

 rapidly developing local inflammatory effects at the point of inocula- 

 tion. Drug idiosyncrasies cannot be transmitted passively, and, so 

 far, no conclusively successful experiments on artificial hypersen- 

 sitization of animals with these substances have been made. There, 

 is only one exception to this, namely the experiments of Swift 59 

 with salvarsan in which active sensitization of guinea pigs with 

 salvarsan-guinea pig serum mixtures resulted in apparently success- 

 ful, though inconclusive, results. 



There is no adequate explanation at the present time for drug 

 idiosyncrasies. The most reasonable suggestion which has been 

 made, however, is the one that drugs enter into some form of com- 



58 Coca, Tice's Practice of Medicine, Vol. 2, 1920. 



59 Swift, J. Exp. .Med. 24, 1916, 373. 



