11
Hay Fever Is No Longer Such
a Mystery to Medical Science
Skin Sensitization Teat Can Now Find What
Allergy Is Troubling You
K'
By WILUAM C. UTLEY
'A-CHOOO-OO-OO! Ha-ha-ha-WISH-eeeeeeee! Sniffle,
sniffle, wheeze—gib be a haggichiff, quig! Hey, hey, it’s
the good old summer time and the hay fever season is
open.
<r Why, oh, why, do I have to go through this every year?”is
the wail of the hay fever sufferer, and well it might be for there
is hardly an affliction so relentless in its unwelcome annual visits.
The answer to the victim’s cry is<
that he is allergic to something in
the air, probably the pollen from a
plant or weed. What particular
plant it is determines whether its
pollen rides the air waves in May,
June, July or September.
Time used to be that hay fever
victims, when they began to sneeze,
their eyes started to water and their
noses to sniffle, simply had to pack
up, leave home and make for the
North Woods or the resorts at
Charlevoix and Mackinac island in
Michigan where the air is compar
atively free from dust and pollen.
While this made an excellent ex
cuse for a vacation it was a con
siderable expense and often a great
inconvenience.
Fortunately today medical science
has made such strides that hay fe
ver can noW be treated with a
pretty fair degree of success right
at home. The big task is to find
out what type of pollen is causing
each individual case. To do this
doctors may have to be expert de
tectives, for many different individ
uals are allergic to different things.
Results of Allergy.
All of us are allergic to some
thing or other, whether it be a cer
tain type of food, the hair of a cer
tain animal, feathers from pillows,
some types of dust, or even smoke.
But only about one person in ten is
allergic to such a degree that he is
uncomfortable.
By allergic we mean. In a free
sense, that we are unusually sensi
tive to something. A high degree
of allergy to some of the things
mentioned in the foregoing para
graph may result in any one or
combination of a number of afllic-
tion»—eczema, hives, “colds,” hay
fever, headache, diarrhea and other
ailments.
Hay fever symptoms spring from
hives which occur in the nose, si
nuses and eyes, causing sneezing
and itching. If they were to occur
In the lungs, causing spasmodic con
traction of the bronchial tubes and
coughing, they would produce asth
ma. When hay fever occurs the
pollen to which the victim is aller
gic enters the nasal ducts, inflam
ing them; the poison passes to the
throat and bronchial tubes, and
Anally to the ends of the bronchial
tracts, where swelling occurs.
The hay fever victim need not
even be living in the neighborhood
of the plants whose pollen are at the
bottom of his grief. To follow a
hypothetical case, let us say a patch
of ragweeds was blossoming in a
vacant lot of some city. A high
wind came, spiriting away the
seeds, lifting them up over the city
and carrying them a hundred or
even two hundred miles from the
place they grew. At last as the
wind dies they settle doom, unhappi
ly, right before an unfortunate soul
who is allergic to ragweed pollen
without ever having discovered it.
He breathes them into his nose—
thousands of them, for it would take
10,000 to cover the head of a pin.
Test Skin With Pollen.
Soon his nasal duct is inflamed
and he begins to sneeze. Then the
poison passes down through his
throat and bronchial tubes and
Wmmmm
Aerial surveys, eonducted thou
sands of feet up, test the air for
hay fever pollen.
swelling occurs. His eyes redden,
his nose itches “where he can’t get
at it to scratch it,” and he begins
to sniffle constantly.
Perhaps our friend thinks he has
a cold. But the doctor says, “Hay
fever,” and tells him he had better
find out what type of pollen is caus
ing the trouble. The customary pro
cedure is for the doctor to begin
making skin sensitization tests. Lit
tle scratches are made on the arm,
and into each of these scratches
one drop of pollen solution is
placed; a different type of pollen
is used on each scratch. The suf
ferer is allergic to the type of pollen
placed hi any scratch which red'
dens end swells
We'U any ear hypesheticel victim
is allergic to ragweed pollen. His
protests to the doctor that he has
not been near any ragweed need
not confuse us, for we know how
the pollen got to him. The doctor
explains it to him, too.
Now the doctor orders injections
of the proper type of pollen vaccine
into the blood. Next year, now that
the patient’s allergy is known, he
will be given minute, but increas
ing doses of the injection, starting
in February and continuing for a
few weeks until it is thought he
should be immune when the season
comes. It does not always work out
that way, and sometimes daily in
jections during the season itself do
not help.
Different pollens do their dastard
ly work at different times of the year
in different sections. In the eastern
and central states, for instance,
jjTune grass causes trouble around
the beginning of that month; in
early July it is Timothy hay, lata
I*
In a patch of ragweed; what a
place for a hay fever victim!
across one in the street one day he
approached it closely to examine
the queer animal at length. He be
gan to choke up and there was a se
vere excretion of fluid from the
lungs. Now he had played with
cats at times, and he owned a little
wire-haired fox terrier, but none of
these had ever affected him so. It
just turned out that he was allergic
to horse hair.
Actually, now that skin sensitiza
tion tests are common, it has been
found that many supposed hay fe
ver sufferers did not have hay fe
ver, but were allergic to their own
dog or cat. You can even be aller
gic to cigarette smoke. There is on
record the case of a woman who
was sensitive to that kind of smoke.
Her husband smoked a pipe; when
she played bridge at the home of
friends who smoked cigarettes she
would begin to sniffle and appear to
have a cfld. The doctor found what
was troubling her and treated he#
for it. Now her companions could
smoke corn silk without bothering
her.
Seasonal asthma is frequently
W"" -—tmm—~
Here are wfcat the
lady Is beldiag are. left te rtghl:
marsh elder and
make bay fever seffi
the following month the giant rag
weed and as September starts it is
the small or common ragweed.
Wbea Suffering Begins.
How severe a victim’s symptoms
are depends upon the amount of pol
len that is filling the air he breathes
as well as upon his susceptibility.
The amount of pollen is likely to
vary from day to day. It will be
stirred up more, of course, when
there is a good breeze, and it will
tend to settle on a calm day. In
some states at the height of the
season it is not unusual to find 1,000
to 2,000 grains of pollen to the cubic
yard of air. Pollen thins out in
higher atmospheres, but aviators
making scientific tests can find it a
mile above the earth.
It is when the air contains a pol
len count of 25 to the cubic yard
that the hay fever victim begins to
suffer, so you can imagine his mis
ery when the count reaches 2,000!
According to medical scientists,
you should not sit next to an open
window on a train if you would
avoid hay fever, although air-con
ditioned cars are all right, for the
pollen is filtered from the air in
them. Nasal sprays will protect the
nose in some measure from attack,
and a little white vaseline around
the opening of the nostrils will keep
some of the pollen from getting in.
Victims will find themselves more
comfortable in a dark room where
there are no drafts.
Although ten persons in one hun
dred suffer to some degree because
they are allergic, only one of these
ten, on an average, has hay fever.
Various allergy victims suffer in
various ways.
Sensitive te Horae Hair.
Take the case of the city child
who was accustomed enough to
thoussndo of 1lea la hu
daily hie. bus seldom. U eves, laid
ryes on a keros Ptnafly csaaaog
1 caused by house dust which mixes
I more actively through the air at
the time of the year when the radi
ators are turned on for the first
time. June flies cause asthma in
the area about the Great Lakes;
elsewhere butterflies or other in
sects could provoke it; so can cer
tain foods, such as berries, aspara*
gus or muskmelon. Almost any
one knows somebody who simply
can’t eat strawberries without get
ting the hives.
When a person begins to have reg
ular attacks of asthma at a certain
time of day or night, the doctor is
likely to examine every article with
which the victim regularly comes
in contact at that time. If they oc
cur at night, it might be the feath
ers in the pillow, the hair in the
bed mattress or the wool in the
blankets.
Boys Hate Haircuts, Anyway.
Sometimes the doctor has to be a
mighty clever detective to find
them, however. There is the case
of a small boy who had an asth
matic attack every few weeks. After
much observation it was found that
in a- general way the attacks cor
responded to the time of his peri
odic visits to the barber. It was
eventually found that he was aller
gic to hair—not to his own hair, or
the hair of anyone in his family, but
to the hair of anyone with whom he
was not in daily contact I
The Detroit News reports the case
of a doctor in that city who suffered
from asthma every Sunday. He
finally discovered that he was al
lergic to Sunday newspapers! No
kidding. He was sensitive to cer
tain aromas which the various inks
gave forth; because of the much
larger paper on Sunday, he spent a
great deal more time with it Te
daily paper did aot have enough
time te affect him, hat the Sunday
eae did
’Way Back When
MOTOR EXECUTIVE A Ah A DAI
LABORER
W ILUAM S. KNUDSEN, vice
president of General Motors,
hardly gave promise to the casual
observer of being executive mate-
rial 30 year ago. Born in Den
mark in 1880, he came to the Unit
ed States at the age of twenty, with
$30 in his pocket His first job was
as a reamer and riveter in a New
York shipyard, and later he worked
in the railroad shops at Salamanca,
N. Y. v repairing locomotive boilers.
Knudsen hao worked in a bicycle
plant in Denmark, and he finally
obtained a job as a bench hand in
a similar factory in Buffalo, N. Y.
The result 9 In five years, Knud
sen was manager of the bicycle
factory, the Keim mills which Hen
ry Ford bought in 1911. During the
next ten years, he vorked closely
with Ford in the development of
mass production of automobiles. In
m Lu
1U 4,
it-*
Malaga, Spain, before shat and shell maned Its beanty.
Civil War Makes World Conscious
of Modem Changes Felt in Spain *
1921, he joined General Motors,
where he steadily advanced to his
present position as one of the most
prominent men in the whole auto
mobile industry.
There is so much in liking the
work you do that, even if offered
more money at something I did
not like, ! think ' would stick with
the thing that appealed to me more.
And 1 would be thinking of my own
success in doing that For, when
are are working on things are like,
are can put in more extra hours,
we take more extra pains, re can
do a better job. Doing the things
we like, we tire lee* easily. We
are inspired toward finding better
ways, and are are able to contribute
so much more than we may be
actually paid for at the moment
that advancement cannot fail to
be rapid.
• • e
FLIVVER KING WAS A SIMPLE
MECHANIC
*T*IM£ la to abort, so swift in pass-
1 mg. we should never be at loss
for how *0 use IL The question
should not be “How can 1 kill this
evening?" but rnther “Do I need
to take this valuable time for fun,
or la there something important I
can do with it 9 ”
Consider the life of Henry Ford.
He was born on a farm near Dear
born. Mich., in IMS. Thi oldest of
five children, Henry helped his fa
ther with the plowing, shucked corn,
mowed hay, cut grain, dug pota
toes, and milked rows. Time nev
er bung heavily on his hands. Me
chanically inclined, be rigged up a
small machine &hop on the farm
and repaired Hatches at night for
the village jeweler. After finishing
the local public schools, the farmer
boy left for the city to seek his for
tune In Detroit, he obtaine*. a job
as a mechanic’s apprautice and the
fortune he received was $2.50 pe
week. When he was twenty-four
he returned to the farm and ran a
sawmill, experimenting in his spare
time with a steam car. There was
never a question in his mind about
what to do with time.
His father was not in sympathy
with Henry Ford’s experiments, so
he again went to Detroit, and
worked for a power and light com
pany at an engineer on the night
shift. During the seven years that
he was there he became general
manager; and night after night, at
home, he worked iar into the morn
ing hours in developing a gasoline
motor car. Success came from his
experiments at last, and in order
to popularize the new vehicle, Hen
ry Ford built racing cars and drova
them himself in race after race.
You know where Henry Ford stands
today.
Hta life is the story of time well
aaad. It is an example worth r»-
membering the next time ^pu are
“how to kill time.”
#-WHU Scrvicv. „ -
Prepared by National Geographic Society,
Washington, D. C.—WNU Service.
C IVIL war in Spain signal
izes the startling changes
which have swept that ancient
land in recent years.
In the swift rush of daily
news, more is said of military
leaders and their campaigns 1 , of
statesmen and changing gov
ernments, than of the deep so
cial and economic transforma
tions behind the news, or the
character of this land and its
people.
Long before King AlfonSo fled,
these changes were of course under
way, and because of them his mon
archy failed.
These transitions have gathered
momentum, until today this once
romantic land of duennas, monas
teries, bullfights and leisurely pas
toral life has written a new and
dramatic chapter in ita long history.
Where centuries-old country lanes
and mountain trails used to wind,
fine new concrete roads now streak
over the hills. To a large degree,
men have exchanged their saddle
mules for flivvers, end the high
wheeled, clumsy oxcart yields to
the whizzing motor truck.
Seaoritas Bob Their Hair.
From the Bay of Biscay down to
the blue Mediterranean, traditional
peasant costumes are being dis
carded and men are dressing in
plain blue overalls. Black-eyed sen-
oritas today lay away the time-hon
ored mantilla, get their hair bobbed
end hunt city jobs as typists, tele
phone girls and shop clerks, as do
their sisters in many lands.
New thinking, as well as new
machines, changes the way of Span
ish life. Bullfighting still goes on,
but now the intrepid toreadors be
long to s labor union! You may still
find guitars and fandangos, for Span
iards are ever a music-loving peo
ple, end possibly you may find
here end there a lovesick couple
mooning at each other through an
old iron-barred window. More and
morei however, the radio super
sedes' the guitar and the girl has
come out from behind the historic
grillwork end gone to the movies
with her sweetheart—or to the street
barricades to fight with him I
One feet to grasp, in understand
ing the social muddle here, is that
Spain is divided into 50 provinces;
and not so many years ago it was
commonly said that it also had 50
different national dances and cos
tumes, together with almost as
many dialects.
Comparatively sudden advent of
new high-speed roads, faster vehi-
clea, speeches and newt broadcast
by sir, and the breakdown of church
influence, all combine now to dis
sipate this old conservative provin
cial spirit. Thus hss Spain been
turned into a milling, restless land.
For the first time country and town
life ere freely blended, and the
peasant can hear the exciting talk
of city radicals and revolutionaries
that yesteryear came only as a
remote murmur.
Spain is now becoming so mod
ernized that busses of every kind
and color race along from village
to village, from town to city. Till
a few years ago, many country
people never journeyed more than
20 miles from home in their lives.
Now by cheap, or even free, rides in
war times, they travel all over the
country!
Political Parties Are Many.
With the rise of the republic
came, of course, more liberty of
speech and action; but, bom of the
50 provinces and their 50 different
ways of thinking, came also wide
division of opinion and action.
Political parties of all shades
sprang up in great variety and num
ber. Certain factions held that prog
ress should be attained gradually
through education of the masses—
masses as yet untrained in the art
of government. This is obviously a
slow process and one would suppose
(hat in a romantic “land of manana”
a slow process would be accept
able.
But the manana idea is another
of those old Spanish customs so
rapidly disappearing; many now de
mand a quicker approach, a faster
progress.
Thus a peek at Spain of today
reveals a startling modernity of
thought, civilization and up-to-the-
minute comforts and contrivances,
•uoerimposed upon the stubborn
survival of many local ways and 1
prejudices that bend or break but*
slowly. \
Irrestibly, however, the cities
put on a more modern dress and,
quicken their pace. Consider, hasti
ly, some of the cities and towns
that have figured in recent war
news. >
The New York ef Spain.
Take a look at Barcelona, the
New York of Spain. It is the largest!
city in the country, the most im
portant financial and industrial can-*
ter and by far the busiest seaport.'
The sun shines in air crisp and
exhilarating as you stroll down the
Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona's most
important thoroughfare and indeed
one of the moat interesting and
modernistic streets in the world.
Fine motorcars (no trucks allowed
on this wide avenue) stop and go
at modem American traffic signals.
At the foot of the Paseo is the
very heart of Barcelona—the Plaza
de Cataluna—a large open apaca
filled with statues, fountains, flow
er beds, paved paths, and benches.
Always animated, human streama
flow in and out of its subway en
trances. The Plaza, too, it the cen^
ter of fierce turmoil in every polity
cal upheaval. It is surrounded by
large, ornate structures—banks, ha*
t«la, and new telephone office build
ing with copper-green tower, a Yan
kee skyscraper indeed in a
metropolis!
Flying et another comer is a wel
come sight for American eyes—the
Stars and Stripes indicating tha
splendid offices of the United States
consulate general.
Ust
Big signs advertise American an*
tomobites. Indeed, three-fourths of
ell cars in the Plaza are of MwMBf
make. There is a large American
bank a few doors up the street; in
bookstores ere displays of American
fountain pens, and in the tobacco
shops even chewing gum!
All these business houses use
American adding machines and
cash registers, and the offices hum
with American typewriters. Many
of the fine new apartment buildings
are equipped with American doors
and electric refrigerators. Hera
“foreign trade” is a pulsing thing
far removed from the dry statistics
of our commerce.
“Rambla” really means a dry
ravine, but in Barcelona the ward
is used to designate a wider street
or boulevard. The original fascinat
ing Rambla of Barcelona it Hfc# no
other thoroughfare in the world! It
is a long, straight avenue with a
wide promenade for pedestrians in
the center and is lined with tall
plane trees.
Busy stores flank the Rambla
from end to end, interspersed with
theaters, cinemas, an ancient
church or two and a large number
of cafes. Under bright, wide awn
ings that canopy the sidewalks snrf
shade the little tables, idlers ait *nd
watch the lifeblood of the metrop
olis stream up and down its main
artery—streaming at a much quick
tempo since recent shooting started I
Like the Paris boulevards, each
section of the Rambla bears a dif
ferent name. First come ornamental
kiosks displaying an amazing va«
riety of newspapers and magazines
in every European language. Then
comes the bird market. Arranged fa|
cages of all sizes along the prom
enade is a bewildering show of-yel
low and brown canaries, gray par*
rots from western Africa, green
ones from Brazil, tiny parakeets,
all setting up a lively chatter.
New World Gives Way.
The next section is the brightest
of all—the Rambla de las Flores.
Here open-air flower stalls, bossed
by black-haired peasant women, of-
er flowers of every color and shade.
Love of flowers is one point at least
upon which all divergent political
parties can agree!
Following the flower stalls coma
more kiosks where one may pro
cure ice cream or soft drinks. Build
ings begin to lode older now—tha
New World gives way to the Old—
and finally we come out into tha
wide water front, with its ornate
customshouse, the tall statue to Co
lumbus, and the palm-lined Paata
da Colon. To the right, in the shadow
of tha huge, somber stone barracks,
is a long double line of bookstaik.
Sloping up on tha right of tha '
bor is the high hill of
with a sinister old fort 1
IB turbulent days of
strikes, executions of
taka place hare.