1,474 research outputs found
Clinical and experimental studies in allergy
Few branches of medical science hold promise of a
richer harvest or are burdened by more conflicting
theories and speculations than that of Allergy. Some
of the confusion is due to the multiplicity of terms
employed for the various types of allergic phenomena
and to the different interpretations of the same term
by clinicians and pathologists. Von Pirquet defined
allergy as the altered capacity for reacting which
follows disease or treatment with a foreign substance.
Though von Firquet had in mind particularly the hypersensitivity
of infection and serum disease he appears
to have included spontaneous hypersensitivity of the
hay fever type as well. As his original definition did
not specify the direction in which the change of reactivity
takes place, the term may be taken to include all
acquired immunity in addition to hypersensitivity.
By investing the term allergy with such an all -embracing
meaning the word in itself conveys but little, or rather
its vastness prevents any attempt at a precise definition.
In contrast to the fundamentalist view is the
tendency, due mainly to Americian clinicians, to narrow
down the meaning of the term to designate the hypersensitivities
of the asthma -hay fever -eczema -urticaria
group. This latter interpretation, however, does not
help matters much, as the term allergy has been firmly
established by pathologists in connection with the hypersensitivity of infection in man and animals, the
mechanism of which is of a different nature to that of
the asthma group. One may cite the case of the
indignant doctor from Ohio, who, wishing to pour forth
his views on asthma, had come all the way to a 'Congress
of Allergy' in London to do so, only to find to his
disgust "Frenchmen and Germans talking about tuberculosis"
(Freeman). Attempts to avoid this ambiguity have
resulted in a flood of terms to describe the asthma
group; thus we have, to mention but a few, Atopy (Coca),
Hyperergy (Schick), Attack Diseases (Aschoff), and
Toxic Idopathies (Freeman). The tendency of many in
the profession to -day is to extend the popular American
usage and apply the term allergy to all those conditions
in man which are believed to be expressions of a state
of increased reactivity, irrespective of the nature of
the mechanism by which they are actuated. Indeed, I
recently heard a distinguished physician describe as
allergic the lowered tolerance to morphia found in
patients with disease of the liver.The conception of allergy in the general sense of
increased reactivity is being widely, and at times
wildly, applied to medical problems at the present time.
I feel that much of the confusion and conflict of
opinion, especially marked in connection with the hypersensitivity
of infection and its relationship to infective
and non -infective asthma on the one hand and to
antibacterial immunity on the other, is due to a failure
to realize that in the group of phenomena designated .
allergic there are several different types of immunological
mechanism involved. In bacterial allergy, for
example, evidence has already been presented to show
there are at least three independent types of allergy to
the pneumococcus and its products, of which one type is
closely related to antipneumococcal immunity.The investigations here -in described were carried
out in the Laboratories of the Inoculation Department,
St. Mary's Hospital, London, during the tenure of an
Asthma Research Council Fellowship, 1932 -1939
Digital Inclusion and Public Space: The Effect of Mobile Phones on Intergenerational Awareness and Connection
This chapter uses the ‘mobilities' lens to explore generational differences in terms of behaviour and attitudes surrounding mobile phone use in everyday public spaces. The mobile phone is a ready accomplice to all forms of contemporary mobility from the everyday and mundane activities within a given neighbourhood through to the global travels of the ‘kinetic elite' (Graham, 2002). As a communication device it provides a source of perpetual contact with significant others that enables the ongoing maintenance of emotional connections whilst on the move, attenuating feelings of physical and virtual proximity. Urry (2007) has suggested that an underlying motive for contemporary mobilities is the deep-seated human need for physical proximity with our significant others, within what others have described as an ‘ontology of connection' (Bissell, 2013). In short, our desire to be close to others drives our need to travel
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