HERMANN VON HELMHOLTZ 



and having observed the researches of Binz on the 

 poisonous action of sulphate of quinine on such organ- 

 isms, he applied to the mucous membrane of the 

 nostrils a solution of one of the salt in eight hundred 

 of water, with almost instant relief. This thera- 

 peutical measure was first carried out in 1867 ; it 

 was often repeated, and, in 1872, Helmholtz told Binz 

 that he was quite cured. To medical men Helmholtz's 

 descriptions of the disease will be interesting, and 

 possibly it shows that he might have made an excellent 

 clinical observer. 1 



'An extraordinary violent sneezing then sets in, 

 and a strongly corrosive thin discharge, with which 

 much epithelium is thrown off. This increases, after 

 a few hours, to a painful inflammation of the mucous 

 membrane and of the outside of the nose, and excites 

 fever, with severe headache and great depression, if the 

 patient cannot withdraw himself from the heat and the 

 sunshine. In a cool room, however, these symptoms 

 vanish as quickly as they come on, and there then only 

 remains for a few days a lessened discharge and soreness, 

 as if caused by the loss of epithelium. I remark, 

 by the way, that in all my other years I had very 

 little tendency to catarrh or catching cold, while 

 the hay-fever has never failed, during the twenty-one 

 years of which I have spoken, and has never attacked 

 me earlier or later in the year than the time named.' 



1 Nature, vol. x., p. 26, May 4, 1874. Letter to Prof. Tyndall from 

 Prof. Binz of Bonn. 



182 



