362  Medical  and  Pharmaceutical  Notes.     |  Am'M°aUy'  192?""* 
MEDICAL  AND  PHARMACEUTICAL 
NOTES 
Toxic  Idiopathy. — In  a  lecture  at  the  Royal  Institution  on 
March  11,  Dr.  John  Freeman,  St.  Mary's  Hospital,  London,  gave  a 
most  interesting-  account  of  the  results  of  recent  research  on  the  idio- 
syncrasy of  the  human  subject  with  reference  to  various  animal  and 
and  vegetable  substances  introduced  into  or  generated  in  the  living 
body  as  food,  or  in  other  forms.  As  an  illustration  of  popular  belief 
in  such  idiosyncrasy  he  quoted  a  specimen  of  ballroom  "conversation" 
from  Punch  of  the  'sixties  of  the  last  century :  "He :  'D'ye  know, 
my  grandfather  couldn't  bear  to  have  a  cat  in  the  room.'  She : 
'Really !  How  strange !  and  my  Aunt  Dorothy  always  fainted  when 
she  smelled  a  rose.'  "  This  popular  notion,  which,  hitherto  had  been 
generally  pooh-poohed  as  a  superstition,  had  now  been  verified  by 
scientific  investigation.  It  had  been  ascertained  that,  in  addition  to 
the  well-known  case  of  hay-fever  sensitive,  upon  whom  grass  pollen, 
and  particularly  Timothy  grass  pollen,  which  in  this  country  was 
more  abundant  and  widely  dispersed  than  that  of  any  other  species, 
set  up  the  inflammatory  conditions  of  the  mucous  membrane,  and  in 
severe  cases  the  constitutional  disturbance  characteristic  of  the  mal- 
ady, many  other  plant,  and  animal  substances  had  a  selective  action 
upon  certain  individuals,  and  it  was  also  proved  that  this  idiosyncrasy 
ran  in  families.  Thus,  there  were  cat-sensitives,  who  were  made  ill 
or  contracted  asthma  by  breathing  in  fragments  of  a  cat's  hairs  or  its 
shed  skin  scales,  or  dust  from  its  secretions;  and  there  were  also 
horse-sensitives,  who  suffered  similarly,  even  by  indirect  contact  with 
horses,  or  by  eating  horseflesh.  In  one  instance  cited  by  the  lecturer, 
a  little  girl  ate  some  sausages  purporting  to  be  made  of  ox-beef,  but 
she  swooned  after  taking  the  sausages,  and  on  subsequent  inquiry  it 
was  found  that  horseflesh  had  been  used  in  their  composition.  A 
large  number  of  cases  were  described  of  intolerance  of  certain  foods. 
Thus,  one  man's  poison  was  carrots;  another's  cabbage;  and  so  on, 
and  the  explanation  of  the  incompatibility  of  cows'  milk  with  some 
babies  was  to  be  found  in  idiosyncrasy.  If  another  animal's  milk 
were  used,  or  the  cows'  milk  were  denatured,  a  eupeptic  condition 
could  be  established.  In  all  these  cases  it  was  possible  to  apply  a 
simple  diagnostic  test  which  discriminated  between  feigned  and  gen- 
