Comments on "How to Prevent Hay Fever"

[quartertone]

Comments on Section 4 of the Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891; "How to Prevent Hay Fever":


My first reaction to reading this section/article was: "Yikes, those are some potentially harmful remedies." And I was strongly tempted to inject into my recording "This is not medical advice. Do not use any of these proposed remedies!"
But of course, I didn't.

Then I looked up the author (Alexander Rixa) and found another article he wrote that was published several years later in a medical journal in 1899.


In this article, he explores the possible causes of "hay fever" (now known as allergic rhinitis/rhinosinusitis) and starts to tiptoe close to the edge of the actual answer, but continued to promote his ridiculous treatment plan. At the end of this 1899 article he declared:

"In closing this paper, I wish to establish herewith my priority to the claim of having been the first to advocate irrigation and sterilization, in order to prevent hay fever, by rendering the parts aseptic. My first article on this subject, under the heading "How to Prevent Hay Fever," was published in The Therapeutic Gazette, January, 1891."

Wow... what a chump. "Make sure everyone knows: I thought of it first! Me!"
Ugh.

What's very interesting is the timing of these articles. In particular, his first article nearly coincides with what might be considered the start/rise of immunology. Antibodies were just beginning to be described and studied in 1890, though it would be decades more before IgE (the antibodies associated with allergies) were discovered.

So I guess the lesson here is: You are only an expert in your paticular area of interest until some other expert comes along and make your area of interest completely obsolete and irrelevant.