HAY FEVER HAY ASTHMA. 315 



HAY FEVER HAY ASTHMA. 



This is a peculiar form of catarrh, or asthma, produced by the inhalation 

 of the pollen of some kinds of plants, and especially grasses. It affects certain 

 persons only, and in them it always comes on at the same time of the year at 

 the latter end of May, or in June, when the grass is in blossom, or when the vernal 

 haymaking is going on. The disorder happens only at the one particular season, 

 and the persons so attacked may not be particularly subject to catarrh at 

 other times, or from ordinary causes. Usually there is headache, which is often 

 severe, together with suffusion of the eyes, sneezing, irritation of the nose and 

 back of the throat, and a dry, harassing cough. Then, at intervals there may 

 be experienced attacks of asthma, lasting for two or three hours, the shortness 

 of breathing being sometimes so urgent that the patient experiences the most 

 distressing sensations of impending suffocation. First attacks of hay fever are 

 generally milder and less persistent than the subsequent ones, the susceptibility 

 apparently increasing year by year. In the early stages sneezing and running 

 from the eyes and nose are the prominent symptoms, but subsequently the 

 asthmatic element is superadded. If the affection be left to itself the duration 

 is usually from three to five weeks, and even in cases most carefully treated 

 the attack may last for a month. Persons who have once suffered, invariably 

 have a return of it if exposed in ever so slight a degree to the exciting cause. 

 The air wafted from Hampstead to central London will, in the haymaking season, 

 often produce the habitual seizure. So exquisitely sensitive to the action of 

 the pollen of grass are some people that the slightest exposure will induce an attack. 

 A lady who suffered annually from this affection stated that a' paroxysm was 

 sometimes brought on by the approach of her children after they had been 

 in a hay-field, and on one occasion this happened when the hay-harvest was 

 over, upon their joining her at tea, after playing in a barn in which the hay 

 of that year had been stored. 



It is a curious circumstance that hay fever should be almost exclusively confined 

 to the educated classes, but so it is. As an American writer humorously remarks : 

 " The. complaint is not met with in the j)lebs f the commune vulgus, the oi polloi, 

 but is patrician and aristocratic, and occurs mainly amongst those high in rank and 

 social position, and eminent for mental and literary attainments. William IV. 

 of England, an English duke, Southey the poet, several learned divines, lawyers, 

 medical men, and their wives, ex-mayors (!), bankers, and ladies of fashion are among 

 the select few on whom it bestows its favours. The great Daniel Webster secluded 

 himself every autumn at Marshfield to get through his season of trial, with what 

 patience he could muster ; and the distinguished Henry Ward Beecher annually 

 vacates his pulpit for a season from the same cause; and certainly, if ever a 

 clergyman had a good excuse for so doing it is he. Preaching even such as his would 

 fail in its effects if interrupted at intervals by a succession of sonorous sneezes, 

 paroxysms of cough, and asthmatic utterance, and a persistent aspersion of eyes and 

 nostrils." It would seem probable that the condition of the nervous system 

 engendered by mental training is especially favourable to the development of hay 



