Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1949-05-06

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was on my internship, the
Doctors who were developing
an interest in allergy were
looked upon as peculiar. They
were the odd sort of fellows
the kind who like to monkey
with the machinery, who
weren't satisfied with a name
as a diagnosis and wanted tt
dig underneath and find what
r,was behind that name.
Twenty years ago wher
skin tests were young, Doc
tors would decide that you
were sensitive to this or thai
and tell you so. 1t took nearly
ten years for them to dis
cover that telling was not
enough. If for example, you
were allergic to horse dander
and you were not particular
ly interested in horses, il
wouldn't be enough to just
tell you that you were al
lergic to horse dander. The
Doctor might have to point
out to you that horse hair is
found in some pillows ano
mattresses. 1t is common in
, a n i que furniture, particu'
arly in the stuffing of daven.
ports and chairs. 1t used to be
used to provide the stiffening in
the lapels of mems suits ano
overcoats. Nowadays the aller-
gist approaching this problem
might 60 even further and ac'
tually learn the conditions un-
der which you live and make a
very careful analysis of all OF
the possibilities that you might
have for encountering horse
dander. Maybe one of your chill
dren likes to ride horseback and
comes home with his clothes
filled with it. Maybe there is a
livery stable across the street
that you didn't know about. Pos
sibly there may be an old barn
on your property which you are
using for a garage. This kind of
enters into the analysis,
not only of horse dander, but
everyone of the hundreds of sub
stances to which you might be
sensitive.
Studies show that more than
500 of the children who are
sensitized to something are sem
sitized to foods. That is reason
able because food is their prin-
ciple environment. They encoun-
ter more strange things inside
than they do outside. If baby
breaks out with an infantile
eczema, or any kind of a skin
rash, or if it fails to gain weight,
or if it has stomach aches, or a
continuously obstructed nose, the
Doctor very likely will consider
food as a possible factor if ev-
erything else is alright He will
be right four times out of five.
Yet, in spite of this he is often
thrown off the track because the
parents of this patient don't give
him all the information neces-
sary. There seems to be a very
definite relation between the al
lergies of parents and grand
parents and the allergies of their
children. If one, or both parents
have hay fever, and grandma is
bothered by a sensitive skin,
there is a pretty good chance
that little Johnny's stomach
ache may be related to sem
Situation of the food he eats.
Milk is often thought to be the
most nearly perfect food for in
fants and for practical purposes
we can admit that it is, but
certain few infants who have be-
come sensitized to milk get very
sick on even small quantity of
it. If that is the case, they have
ITO be fed other things and that
is where the advice of your doc
tor is so important. Persistent
collie, the good old fashioned bel
ly-aches that small children and
infants have, should cause one
to think of food sensitivity as
possible cause. So much for the
infant.
When we move from infancy
and into childhood, we find a
sharp drop in the number of I
cases of food sensitivity, and
sharp increase in the proportion
who are sensitive to pollenS, an
imal danders, dusts, and other
things that are breathed in rath-
er than eaten. The change be-
comes obvious about the time
the younster starts to explore
this new world. Being close to
the floor and unable to support
himself for very long, he has his
lose in the nap of a rug good
share of his waking hours. If he
is the kind of youngster who is
likely to become sensitized to
something here is an excellent
opportunity to become sensitiz-
ed to house dust, since the rug is
full of it. Or he climbs on chairs
and lays his face on their seats, {
or plays with woody dogs and {
teddy bears that are full of dust. S
He gets to all the strange places /
arni1nd the ha11Sa n,thn.a l,,n4 4