— 99 — 



In view of the cases of alleged inefficacy of the preparation which 

 occasionally come to our knowledge, we beg to give the following 

 particulars, and propose to return to this subject more in detail in our 

 next Report, i. e. immediately before the commencement of the next 

 hay-fever season. 



The inefficacy of pollantin may firstly be due to the fact 

 that the patient is erroneously treated for hay-fever. It is not sur- 

 prising if in such cases pollantin refuses to act. Secondly, a few 

 patients complain of a certain irritating effect in the application 

 of pollantin. To these we would reply that with every serum, 

 including those which are injected hypodermically (as is well known 

 also with diphtheria serum) many individuals react by local swellings, 

 or slight fever, the so-called "serum-disease". But these symptoms are 

 of course of no consequence whatever for the activity of the serum, 

 and are due to an individual "cannot -tolerate -this", an idiosyncrasy 

 against heterogeneous albumin. In the case of pollantin this 

 manifests itself by itching, or by the flow of tears at the site where it 

 is applied. For determining these idiosyncrasies we supply free on 

 applying a dose of normal serum prepared from horses which have not 

 been treated before, with the same irritating action on serum-sensitive 

 persons as any other animal serum. The above-mentioned symptoms 

 of irritation can be alleviated in such patients, by the administration 

 of smaller doses of the preparation at more frequent intervals. 

 If the result is then also negative, we would ask that details of the 

 case be submitted to us or our Branch Offices direct. We are engaged 

 in working out a special method of application, or a special preparation 

 for such sensitive patients, and hope to communicate our work in this 

 direction in our next Report. 



For those who take an interest in the matter, we give below a 

 summary of the literature dealing with hay fever and its treatment: 



Bazzicalupo, Gazz. internat. di medicina, March, 1906. 



Dunbar, ZurUrsache und spezif. Heilung des Heufiebers. Munich and Berlin, 1903. 



— Ursache und Behandlung des Heufiebers. Lecture. Leipzig, 1905. 



— Deutsche med. Wochenschr. 1903, No. 9. 



— Berl. klin. Wochenschr. 1903, No. 24—26, 28. 

 Kammann, Beri. kiin. Wochenschr. 1906, No. 26. 



Lief ma nn, Zeitschr. f. Hyg. u. Infectionskrankh. 1904, No. 2, 



— Therap. Monatshefte 1905, No. 12. 



— Munch, med. Wochenschr. 1906, No. 4. 

 Liibbert, Therap. Monatsh. 1904, 605. 



Liibbert and Prausnitz, Berl. klin. Wochenschr. 1904, No. ti, 12. 

 Marcuse, J., Leipziger Illustr. Zeitung, No. 3232, 8th j une 1905. 

 Prausnitz, Berl. klin. Wochenschr. 1905, No. 9. 



— Munch, med. Wochenschr. 1905, No. 23. 



Wolff-Eisner, Das Heufieber, sein Wesen und seine Behandlung. Munich, 1906. 



— Berl. klin. Wochenschr. 1906, No. 4. 



7* 



