Prophylaxis of Summer Hay-Fever and Asthma

The allergy epidemics: 1870-2010

“…If you look at New York City, you could argue that the critical changes in hygiene were complete by 1920 [Table 2]. In keeping with that, allergy became more common and by 1946 ragweed hay-fever was such a severe problem in New York that the city council initiated a ragweed eradication campaign 17, 18 [Table 2] Equally in London, Dr. Frankland’s allergy clinic had hundreds of patients in the 1950’s and he and Dr. Augustin carried out the first controlled trial of immunotherapy for grass pollen hay fever 19 . In fact, the rise in allergic disease was already obvious when Dr. Swineford was appointed as professor of allergy and rheumatology at the University of Virginia in 1935.…”

Standardisation of Pollen Extracts by Gel Diffusion

“…A positive response was obtained (3). More important still, the chemically isolated main protein component of 'Pollaccine' has been used successfully in the treatment of hay fever and asthma (11). It has been shown in the main body of the present paper that the antigen component of the line used in our tests could, in fact, be identified with the chemically isolated main protein component.…”

“…of crude pollen extract. The isolated proteins proved to be active by skin tests and clinically (11), but the percentage of biologically unreactivc protein impurity has yet to be determined. We may, however, safely assume that crude extracts contain less than 0.1 mg. active protein N/ml.…”

Depot Injections in Treatment of Hay-fever and Pollen Asthma

“…Comparison Between Desensitization with Aqueous and Depot Pollen Frankland and Augustin (1954) showed that desensitization with aqueous pollen extract produced 80% good or excellent results compared with 40% in those treated with placebo injections of phenol saline. The difficulties encountered in attempting to assess the effect of treatment in hay-fever have been fully discussed at a Conference on Evaluation of Hayfever Therapy (1964).…”

“…The lower dose of aqueous extract was selected in order to provide a fairer comparison with the depot pollen. Frankland and Augustin (1954), giving the larger dose of aqueous pollen (20,000 Noon units), reported 27 % to be free of symptoms. The lower figures (10%) in th s series could be explained by the smaller maximum dose, but it must be pointed out that 1964 was a year with exceptionally high atmospheric pollen counts, and a lower proportion of good results might be expected.…”