MEDICAL NOTES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 7 (Supplement)

MEDICAL NOTES.

CAUSES OF ASTHMA. AN ENGLISH INQUIRY. INHERITED TENDENCIES. (By PERITUS.) Among tlio causcs of asthma inhaled wool takes fourth place, and a report upon a number of tested cases gives tlio origins in tho following order: Pollen, 40 (38.0); feathers, 43 (30.1); house dust, 2ti (21.5); sheep wool, 22 (18.4); cat hair, 1!) (10.0); dog hair-, 15 (12.0); cotton, 12 (10.0); rabbit hair, 7 (5.8); cattle hair, 1 (0.8). The figures ill brackets arc the percentages. In this country, •where there are so many workers' in wool, it is probable that some cases of asthma are caused by it. In factories, where the workers are within doors, ono would expect to find tlio greater number. The English Asthma Research Council is responsible for tracing the greater number of wool asthma patients to the west riding of Yorkshire, where, of 250,000 operatives 200,000 are to be found. Affected workers are known as "sensitive," these people responding- to the irritation of the air passages by different substances. Of forty actual patients studied there wcro three who wore affected by pollen, two by grain dust, eight by animal emanations, three by house dust, four by cotton dust, and nineteen by wool. There were many more females than males among these last-named asthmatics. Inliaflations from wool are not so frequent a cause in any other locality where notes had been taken as in this part of the country where tho wool industry is tho chief occupation of the

workers. Tho period of exposure to wool dust before asthma developed varied from months to years, so that soino special condition at one peiiod added to individual sensitivity is to be suspected. In some cases the skin test for sensitivity showed that there was reaction to more than one substance, but in these cases there was always a predominant cause. "Wool which lias undeigone one or many processes in the pouiso of manufacture (bedding, clothing, etc.) is as capable of producing irritation as tho crude material, and not only weavers, "wool classcrs, tailors and scamstresses wero affected, but those who cam© in frequent contact with wool in other ways. Wrapping Up Patients. The report contains the following: "Amongst articles of clothing some common offenders arc scarves, shawls, sweaters and underwear. It has not been an unusual experience to lind a patient, while in the throes of an attack of asthma, to be smothered in woollen scarves, shawls and blankets, and to discover that the asthma was duo. to wool sensitivity. The replacement ot all woollen garments by silk ones often gave marked relief, or was followed by prompt cessation of the attack. Wool is also used as padding of quilts and as stuffinL' of mattresses, pillows, cushions and upholstered furniture. Anions household objects which may bo made of sheep wool are carpets, rugs, tapestries, toys and shoe brushes. Powder puffs are often inado of wool, and crude wool grease is used for making soap, while refined wool fat or lanolin is used in salves and in cosmetics and toilet preparations. „ i<i«n for cream and ointments.

It is" found in face and talcum powers. Skein wool may give rise to sensitisatiou in housewives, and. two wool-sensi-tivo patients, who liavc not been included ill the group of cases of occupational asthma, had been a lot of knitting prior to developin D asthma. Treatment by Injection. The treatment is to desensitise the -.atient bv injections of a sheep-wool •xtract, which method is, in a great lumber of cases, remarkably successful. \ similar method of treatment is idoptcd when other substances arc found .o cause irritation of the air-passa„c., md although as change of locality or a ;liange_ of occupation may cause in - jrovemcnt most patients prefer to be, lcßcnsitiscd so that they can continue | n the same work and perhaps lie same surroundings. It is strange hat suggestion and auto-sugges ion Should sometimes have done for the icrvous forms of asthma what the scientific study of the disease has done ,n the purely physical side. "Family histories showing a stioii hereditary tendency for asthma and for jtlier nervous signs and symptoms aic 'crv common. In a family where the brother and sister had asthma and the sister dyspepsia, the father s father had isthma, but the father did not have isthma; the mother's father and his Kree brothers and both her grand11arents had asthma. Like all sensitives, Asthmatics are liable to become ?«»Bitivc i n special <*rass pollens or to animal and vegetable proteins. Susceptibility then levelops and readily become habitual. Plinicallv, as well as experimentally, the Asthmatic is usually <Hverish/ means defective assimilation or defective Blimination. Rich fats arc the chief offenders." Child Victims. There is still much treatment by drugs, adrenaline and ephednne being popular. It is never to be assumed that asthma is the "whole bag of tricks without a slow, careful and very thorough examination of the chest. There may be a major disease of which the asthma is no more than a symptom The dry harsh variety is of a different ori<nn from the moist, choking of bronchial occlusion due to cata Ar English physician lias argued that lr ihifdren there is a special type subjec to asthma which he names asbutoneo the diseases to which these children aic liable. Of these children he says: "Children of the type are of great sensibility, with intense reactions t< their surroundings. They spend the,, nervous energies so freely that a reactior follows, leading to nervous and probably to associated disorders They have inherited, and may liav< irritated, an cxcitable autonomic ner vous system. They blush with umisua facility, have erythema under menta stress, moist hands and feet, vehiclc sickness, or show some other signs o sensibility such as habits like asthma and acidosis, eczema, hay-fever. Loca irritations may play their part in tin excitation and perhaps the detorminatioi of the site of these habits, but the sam< local irritation will not causo habit 11 a child who is not of this type. The moral of this is to be careful 11 your selection of parents—and grand parents.