516 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLVII. No. 1221 



$175,000, will be dedicated during "Farmers' 

 Day " at the college on May 30. 



The contract has been let for the construc- 

 tion of a new fireproof chemistry building at 

 the Montana State College, Bozeman. This 

 building replaces the one destroyed by fire in 

 October, 1916. The building will cost $110,000, 

 exclusive of furniture and is 130 X 60. This 

 forms a unit of a larger building plan to be 

 developed as the institution grows. The build- 

 ing will furnish quarters for the experiment 

 station and college departments of chemistry 

 as well as quarters for the state food and water 



De. a. E. Kennelly, professor of electrical 

 engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology, has been appointed acting head of 

 the electrical engineering department of the 

 institute during the absence of Professor 

 Jackson, who has been commissioned a major. 



At the Harvard Medical School three mem- 

 bers of the medical faculty have been pro- 

 moted to full professorships as follows: Dr. 

 Eichard C. Cabot, clinical professor of medi- 

 cine; Dr. Eugene A. Crockett, Le Compt pro- 

 fessor of otology, and Dr. F. S. Newell, clin- 

 ical professor of obstetrics. 



Lester F. Weeks, assistant professor of 

 chemistry in the University of Maine, has been 

 appointed assistant professor of chemistry at 

 Colby College to succeed Dr. Robert G. Cas- 

 well, who has resigned. 



At Wellesley College, Lincoln W. Eiddle, as- 

 sociate professor of botany, William Skar- 

 strom, associate professor of hygiene, and Rox- 

 ana Hayward Vivian, associate professor of 

 mathematics, have been appointed to full pro- 

 fessorships. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE 



WALNUT POLLEN AS A CAUSE OF HAY FEVER 



The prevalent assumption that the tree pol- 

 lens play only a minor role, if any, as causa- 

 tive factors in hay fever must now be aban- 

 doned, since one species alone has been dem- 

 onstrated to be the cause of hundreds if not 

 indeed thousands of cases in California. 



The spring type of this malady is very 



troublesome in the Sacramento valley, where 

 it has been commonly attributed, even by physi- 

 cians, to locust and to orange pollen. How- 

 ever, predictions based upon botanical char- 

 acters that these pollens would give negative 

 results were thoroughly substantiated by in- 

 tradermal tests in which the pollen extracts 

 were used. At the request of Dr. Grant Self- 

 ridge, of San Francisco, the writer therefore 

 visited the city of Colusa in April, 1917, to de- 

 termine, if possible, the specific cause or 

 causes of the trouble. It was noted that the 

 native California black walnut (Juglans cali- 

 fornica var. Hindsii Jepson) was much used 

 as a street tree, that the abundant pollen sifted 

 down over the city just at the time when the 

 disease was most prevalent, and that the dis- 

 ease disappeared soon after the close of the 

 flowering period. It was also learned that 

 when patients left the region temporarily to 

 escape the disease they were free from the 

 symptoms, except when passing through towns 

 where the black walnut grew. Finally, the bo- 

 tanical characters of the pollen were exactly 

 those which one would expect in a hay-fever 

 plant. Since this evidence all pointed to the 

 walnut as probably the chief offender, samples 

 cf the pollen were gathered and biological tests 

 were made by Dr. SeKridge on some eight 

 subjects. In each case the results were posi- 

 tive. 



Twelve hay-fever subjects were also exam- 

 ined at Chico, a neighboring city, where cases 

 are abundant during the spring and where the 

 walnut is much grown as an ornamental tree. 

 In every case positive reactions were obtained 

 with extracts prepared from the California 

 black walnut pollen, whereas the controls gave 

 no reactions. Other pollen extracts gave re- 

 sults in a few cases, indicating that the sub- 

 jects were sensitive to these also. This was 

 especially true of western mugwort {Artemisia 

 heterophylla) which is a common cause of the 

 fall type. The intradermal tests were verified 

 by direct application to the nostrils, and the 

 well-known symptoms of hay fever were im- 

 mediately produced in each case. 



The treatment of numerous hay-fever sub- 

 jects in the Sacramento and neighboring val- 



