The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1904-09-02
ST. PAUL GERMAN SCIENTIST
SAYS HE HAS A TOXIN
THAT CURES.
Disease Is Caused by the Chemical
Action Of Certain Kinds of
Pollen.

NEW YORK, Sept. 2.-Professor w.
P. Dunbar, who has produced a serum
for the cure Of hay fever, is in New
York on his way to the St. Louis ex-
position, where he will take charge of
the German government exhibit relat-
ing to hay fever and its cure. He ar
rived in New York at a dramatic mo-
ment for this is the hay fever season.
Professor Dunbar is a German scien-
fist, and yet he isn't. He was born in
st. Paul, of American parents. He
went to Germany as a student and re-
manned there. He has become most
thoroughly Germanized. He is now at
the head of the state hygienic institute
at Hamburg. The "only American
government official in Germany" he
calls himself.
Hay Fever a Study.
He began to work on hay fever
about ten years ago, taking up that
disease because he himself was sub
ject to it.
The disease is not a germ COM
plaint,'' he said. 1T is caused by the
chemical action of certain kinds of
pollen. In Europe rye grass makes the
most trouble. Here in the United
States the dangerous plants are gold
4 js
also dangerous, though not so great a
degree. The hay fever season begins
in August, just when the pollen is fly
ing.
AT first scientists thought that all
these pOllens carried minute barbS,
which set up local irritation. But
I found that While this is true of the
goldenrod, for example, it is not true
of Indian corn, which gives off per-
fectly smooth pollens. SO by a tedi
Gus process of elimination and analy-
sis l located in albumen.
Take rye grass, for example. An
analysis of one grain of its pollen
shows, water, 1912 per cent; inorganic
matter, "a per cent; organic matter
S5.4 per cent. This organic matter
contains 3 per cent of fats, 25 Yer cent
of carbohydrates, IS per cent of nitro
genous non albumenous substances
and 40 per cent of poisonous albu-
mems.
With these poisonous albumens l
completed my experiments. A solu-
ton of the substance dropped into the
eye of a person subject to hay fever
produces all the symptoms at any time
of the year. There is enough of 1t In
one grain of rye grass pollen to in
feet 100000 nay fever patients.
Carried Far and Wide.
THE wind carries the pollen wide
ly, hundreds of miles in fact. That is
the reason why it is epidemic in the
city as we'll as in the country just now.
When the steamer was nearly five
hundred miles from the land this trip
l caught slight attack from an Off
shore breeze.
only certain persons are subject
and they are mostly brain workers.
There is some nervous connection,
not yet fully understood, between
brain fatigue and the weakening MEM
branes which hay fever attacks. The
Americans especially are subject to it.
owing to the high pressure of Ameri-
can life I suppose. Old cases of in
fuenza sometimes cause a predispo-
sition to the disease. Susceptibility to
hay fever also is hereditary.
My remedy is a toxin prepared like
other toxins, by injecting poisonous
matter into horses. In this part of
my work l found curious thing. Only
10 per cent of the horses we tried are
sound and those sensitive horses We're
all thoroughbreds. A horse has to re-
ceive steady injections for ten
months before it's condition will yield
the proper strength of serum. If this
serum is mixed with albuminous pois-
on and put into the eye of the person
subject to the disease there will be no
hay fever reaction at ALL