ASTHMA AND HAY FEVER.

Shannon News, 11 February 1927, Page 1

ASTHMA AND HAY FEVER.

THEIR ORIGIN, DIAGNOSIS, AND TREATMENT. - I INTERVIEW WITH LEADING AUTHORITY,. Auckland, January 31. An arrival by the Niagara from Vancouver was Dr. George Piness, an eminent Los Angeles physician, who is recognised as a leading authority in America on the diseases of asthma and hay fever. He is en route to Dunedin to attend the Australasian Medical Congress, which opens on Thursday. Dr. Piness is world famous for invaluable research work, and practical courses of treatment evolved at his large and splendidly equipped laboratories at Los Angeles. Though yet in his thirties he is honoured by the oldest and most learned men of his profession, and his clinic is visited by nearly every physician and surgeon passing through America. He maintains a large staff of medical and technical assistants, including botanists, bacteriologists, “environists,” and emanalogists. The method of diagnosis and treatment adopted at these laboratories have been known to science for some sixteen years, but it has been left to Dr. Piness to put them into practice oil a large scale and bring their benefits to the knowledge of the profession at large. Thousands of people in the United States have found relief, if not a complete cure, by their adoption, and perfection is not claimed to have been reached yet. The interesting feature of the treatment practised by Dr. Piness is the injection of the patient with a vaccine or astitoxin, combined wherever possible by the removal of the external irritant usually to be found in the patient’s environment, The causes of asthma and hay fever, as well as the associated disease eczema, have been the subject of thorough research at the laboratories extending over many years, with the result that the various casual irritants of these diseases have been largely determined. Cause of Asthma and Hay Fever. Dr. Piness stated that in general the cause of asthma and hay fever could be attributed to proteins regardless of the form in which they entered-the respiratory organs. The odours from flowers and other vegetable matter, the emanations from animals ,and the air of certain localities were all known to act as irritants in various cases. Wool and silk were dangerous in some instances, and a frequent cause in the ease of women was face powder. Emanations from some foods used at the breakfast and dinner table were irritants, but the most common source of trouble was to be found in the odours from animals such as dogs, cats and other household pets, and horses. The origin of asthma had often been traced also to the feather beds the patients slept on. The first step in dealing with a new patient at the laboratories was to piake a series of tests to ascertain what'particular substances the patient was susceptible to. This was often a prolonged process, but upon its completion the experts possessed for the first time definite information to act upon. The treatment then became twofold —an antigan or vaccine consisting of a specimen of the irritant suffered from was injected and in a great many cases this was sufficient to put an end to the trouble and effect a complete cure. Thus the origin of asthma and hay fever had been definitely . traced in particular cases to dandruff from horses, and an injection of horse dandruff has been successful in many of these cases in rendering the patient immune from further suffering. This method of treatment, Dr. Piness stated, was now no longer in the experimental stage but had been accepted as the correct treatment for these diseases. The second method of attack specialised in at Los Angeles was to effect the removal of the external irritant. The patient was advised what foods to avoid, what animals or plants to escape, and what articles or substances in his environment he should dispense with. Trained men, many of them possessing medical degrees, were dispatched to the patient’s place of residence, no matter in what corner of the United States he may reside in and there an examination and inventory was made of the various objects in the neighbourhood from which the irritant might originate. By this father, Mr. Ernest Allen, while the Rev. may be confirmed or set aside, and the patient advised accordingly. Sometimes it meant a change of residence to avoid, for instance, emanations from the grass in the neighbourhood, and occasionally improvement was effected by transferring residence from one side of the Continent to the other.

Dr. Piness was met on his arrival by Dr. J. Hardie Neil, on behalf of the Auckland Division of the British Medical Association. He will give a demonstration at the Dunedin Congress of his method of testing patients.