- 139 — 



Bios has succeeded in demonstrating that polymerised allyl cinna- 

 mate C 6 H 5 • CH : CH • C0 2 • CH 2 • CH : CH 2 has no effect whatever when 

 applied on tuberculous centres, whereas the monomolecular ester does 

 counteract tuberculosis. 



Judging from the abstract of the article under review further proof of 

 the correctness of this hypothesis appears to be very desirable. 



Pollantin. For the past few years, until 1910, the weather during 

 the flowering time of the grass and corn had generally been cool and 

 damp, with the result that on the whole hay-fever had been of a mild form 

 and not very frequent. In 1910, however, as a result of sunny and com- 

 paratively warm weather at the critical time of the ripening of the grass, 

 hay-fever again became more acute and wide-spread, and renewed interest 

 was therefore shown in our hay-fever serum Pollantin. For this reason 

 we pass in review below the more recent investigations into the origin 

 and nature of hay-fever, and its treatment with pollantin. 



Some years ago, Albrecht 1 ) opposed the theory propounded by certain 

 investigators of the subject of hay-fever, that the affection was chiefly 

 due to the presence of anaphylactic conditions, that is to say, conditions 

 in which the human system becomes hyper-sensitive to albumen from 

 extraneous sources, and that even from a theoretical standpoint the 

 pollantin treatment was therapeutically useless in such conditions. Quite 

 recently Dunbar 2 ) has also entered opposition to the anaphylactic theory, 

 and has brought forward fresh and important experimental material. Dunbar 

 shows that in judging the results of the pollantin treatment two conside- 

 rations should be kept clearly distinct from each other, the mixing-up of 

 which has caused much confusion. Dunbar differentiates between the 

 purely antitoxic, curative action of the serum of animals which have 

 undergone a preliminary treatment with vegetable pollen and the symptoms 

 of irritation which have been observed in the cases of a small number 

 of hay-fever patients. The antitoxic action of the serum has been con- 

 firmed by the searching experiments of independent investigators, such 

 as Billard and Maltet 3 ), and is in fact not denied by the opponents of 

 Dunbar's views. As regards the symptoms of irritation, these, like the 

 antitoxins, are connected with the globulin of the serum, and their 

 fundamental substances cannot for that reason be chemically separated. 

 Such instances of irritation, which are at best rare, do not justify us in 

 imitating Weichardt and Wolff-Eisner by describing the action of pollantin 

 as cytolytic, that is to say as intensifying the action of the pollen by 

 dissolving it. On the contrary, it is just these symptoms of irritation 

 which are of an anaphylactic character; there exists a hyper-sensitiveness 



J ) Meclizin. Klinik 1908, p. 665. 



2 ) Deutsche Mediz. Wochenschr. from 30 March 1911. 



*) Gazette des Hdpitaux 82 (1909), No. 52, p. 651. 



