The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1944-12-05

tnefld, III tHllut bNNoN'S ~ -
never fatal and the children even
DR.. Clendening will answer
questions Of general interest
only, and then only through
his column.
tually get over it. But it hangs on
and the poor little things are al
ways itching and covered with
crusts and scratch marks from al
most the time of birth TO three or
four or five years cid. All remedies
are palliative and most Of them
fail completely and it is a miser-
able situation all around.
ANY suggestion therefore that
might help is welcome.
1t has generally been conceived
to be an allergy or sensltlveness
and the best efforts are directed
towards finding out some food that
Is responsible. But here too there
is limit imposed by common sense
to too drastic treatment. You can't
limit a growing child's diet too
much, certainly not to the extent
Of interfering with nutrition, and
most of the foods implicated have
been the most nutritious elements
of a child's diet.
In fact up to the present we
know very little about infantlle
eczema.
Doctors Suggestion
So the suggestion that it is due
to sensitiveness to human dander,
as made by DR.. Frank Simon, Of
Louisville, is very welcome.
The dander may come from the
father, mother, nurse, or relative
handling the child. We know that
allergies are due to cat dander,
and various animal danders, why
not human dander?
One of the mysteries of the con-
dition is the way it nearly always
clears up at the ages of three to
five. There aren't many changes in
food habits at that time. But that
is Just the age when we begin to
leave off handling the baby, when
he begins to do things for himself,
when he begins to dress himself,
when he isn't wompsy-dumpsied so
much, when the fond parent or
relative doesn't put her head into
the baby's face and neck and throw
dander and dandruff all over the
sensitive skin.
Cure and Prevention
The possibility of cure and pre-
vention involves such simple and
harmless procedures that they are
certainly worth trying. They are:
l. Parents and others IN contact
with the child are instructed to
wash their scalps thoroughly at
least once a week with soap, water
and brush. 2. The child's scalp is
TO be treated likewise. 3. The child
is to wear long sleeves to the
wrists and long stockings reach
ing above the knees. 4. No one IS
permitted to hold the child with
out first putting on clean, wash
able Jacket over his ordinary cloth
ing and covering the scalp and
hair with a clean cap or cloth ar
ranged to enclose completely all
the hair. 5. The child's face is not
permitted to come in contact with
the parents face or hair, and the
child's arms are not to be placed
about the parents neck.
In practice this method works
very successfully. In the first
place it is possible to show in
these cases that dander taken from
the head of parent or nurse who
handles the child, rubbed on 70 an
uninvolved area Of the skin will
produce a typical eczematous
eruption. When the precautions as
outlined are carried out improve
ment or complete cure has been
shown to occur in actual patients
under observation.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
R. W. E.:-Just what part OF
the state of California would be
best for hay fever and asthma?
Answer: Those who live in the
middle west and suffer there from
the typical hay fever that prevails
from August to October will not
suffer from that type anywhere in
California. However, they should
know that California has its own
kinds of asthma from plants and
some of my patients who move
there pick up a new variety. How
avar ~ il NOT severe or common.