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112 REPORT OF SCHIMMEL & Co. APRIL 1914, a icy 
albumen, that is to say, that it occurs in the readily-soluble portions. The aqueous a 
pollen-extracts had no keeping properties, but the solid crude-toxin prepared by precipi- 
tation by alcohol was found to be specially suitable for clinical experiments and other 
investigations, because it could be kept for years without undergoing change. The 
average minimum limit of activity of the toxin was found to be 1 to 2 drops of a 
1: 40000 aqueous solution. According to the calculations of the weight of pollen made 
by Kammann this infinitisimal quantity equals from 2 to 4 individual pollens, yet it is 
quite sufficient to provoke within the space of a few minutes the objective and sub- 
jective symptoms of hay-cold in patients of normal receptivity to toxic influences. 
This calculation agrees with Liefmann’s estimates of the proportions of pollen present 
in the atmosphere during the hay-fever season. More sensitive subjects responded 
to still weaker dilutions of the toxin-solution. The symptoms, which of course are 
capable of being provoked at any time of the year, corresponded in every respect with 
those of genuine hay-fever. But Prausnitz, experimenting on himself, was able to 
provoke more or less pronounced symptoms of the disease not only by contact of the 
toxin with the mucous membranes, but also by subcutaneous injections and even by 
a mere rubbing of the solution on the sound skin. In his case, the symptoms following 
subcutaneous injection were particularly strong; they manifested themselves by a 
swelling of the arm to twice its normal size at the point of injection and by urticarious 
exanthema over the whole body. On the other hand, a medical man who was not 
predisposed to hay-fever, when subjected to the same treatment, remained practically 
free from any symptoms. 
The discovery of the cause of hay-fever had important consequences upon the 
treatment of the disease. New methods of treatment, directly attacking the cause, 
superseded the purely empirical remedies, such as the excessive administration of 
narcotics, including cocaine, and adrenalin, which contracts the cells and impedes 
secretion. The form of treatment nearest at hand was the negative, prophylactic one, 
the patient being warned to avoid as far as could be contact with those species of 
pollen which were known irritants, or, where possible, to seek refuge in places where 
there are none or few toxic pollens, say certain high-lying mountain resorts, or islands 
such as Heligoland. The same object is effected by change of residence, always 
selecting places where the fatal plants are not yet in flower, or have flowered. Few 
persons, however, are in circumstances which allow them to suspend their ordinary 
occupations and to keep changing their place of abode for a sufficiently long period, 
and measures were therefore devised to afford some sort of protection against the 
pollen in the patient’s ordinary environment. It was attempted to achieve this object 
by the use of glasses of the nature of motor-goggles, affording protection from the 
penetration of dust, and, for the nose, by cotton-wool plugs in small frames, worn ; 
inside the nostrils. With the object of rendering more difficult the solution of pollen 
which might penetrate in spite of these precautions, patients were recommended to 
rub slightly with some fatty substance the mucous membrane of the nose before the 
secerning of the mucous. Another mode of treatment was soon added to the foregoing. 
A specific irritant of a toxic character being now known to be the cause of the trouble, — 
the possibility was recognised of a specific biological method of treatment resembling 
that employed in diphtheria and other infectious diseases, that is to say, of sero- 
therapy. Dunbar soon afterwards instituted investigations in this direction. He 
commenced by giving subcutaneous injections of the clear, aqueous pollen-extracts to 
small animals, such as rabbits and goats, and afterwards to horses, and observed that, 
as a rule, animals rarely react towards such injections, and that when they do, they 
