Hay fever : its causes, treatment, and effective prevention. Experimental researches / by Chas. Harrison Blackley.

  • Blackley, Charles Harrison, 1820-1900.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hay fever : its causes, treatment, and effective prevention. Experimental researches / by Chas. Harrison Blackley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    on the living body, and in applying these^ or avoiding them, so as to obtain the desired result, either of preventing the occurrence of disease, or of converting the state of disease into that of health. It is to the extent and correctness of our knowledo-e of these agencies that the perfection of the art of physic must consist.’* * * § The remarks just quoted apply with considerable force to the study of the malady which is the subject of the inquiries and experiments described in the following pages. § 5. Hay-fever or hay-asthma was first known in this country, and may, indeed, be said to have had its birthplace in England. It was first described by Bostock, in the year 1819. In a paper read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London, he gave an account of a case which was termed ‘A Case of the Periodical Affection of the Eyes and Chest,’-f* and which was, in reality, a description of his own case. Herberden had previously mentioned^ such a catarrh as is understood to have been what is now termed hay-fever, but he does not seem to have known anything of its real nature. Cullen also remarks that in some persons asthmatic fits are more frequent in summer, and more particularly during the dog-days, than at other colder seasons of the year. In 1828 Dr. Bostock read a second paper§ on this subject before the above-named societ3^ and gave a more lengthened and exact account of the symptoms of the disease. § 6. In the time which had elapsed between the reading of his first and second papers, Bostock had either seen or had received ‘distinct accounts of eighteen cases,’ besides about ten others in which ‘ the accounts were less perfect.’ In the latter commui\ication the disorder was desiornated O ‘catarrhus mstivus,’ or ‘summer catarrh.’ It is b}’’ this * lUedical Logick, by Sir Gilbert Blane. London, 1819. t ‘ Case of a Periodical Affection of the Eyes and Chest,’ by John Bostock, M.D. Medico-Ghii'urgical Ti-ansactiuns, Loudon, 1819, vol. X. part i. pp. 161—165. J Commentary on the Ilistoi'y and Cure of Diseases. 4th edition. London, 1816. Chap. ‘ Destillatio,’ p. 113. § ‘On Catarrhus Alstivus, or Summer Catarrh,’ by John Bostock, M.D. Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, 1828, vol. xii. p. 437—446. 1—2