Subject: Re: ancient allergies - msg#00067

At 10:59 PM 9/5/2004 -0400, PTR wrote:
It would be very interesting to go through classical biographies and
look for cases in which someone who began life as a "sickly" child grew
up to be healthy and strong. It's possible (to speculate) that some of
these would represent childhood allergies.

Another thing to look for - people with respiratory ailments whose
health improves when they vacation on the coast (supposedly sea breezes
can blow pollen in land and thereby reduce pollen counts, but my source
for this is not exactly solid), or dry places.

Colleen McCullough [don't groan :) ], who by training is a
neurophysiologist, makes such a case for Augustus and she explains her
hypothesis in her endnotes of the October Horse. Of note is her explanation
of his disappearance at Philippi. King and Cohen (Allergy Asthma Proc. 2001
Mar-Apr;22(2):101-9) are of the same opinion. I am not home, so I only have
an incompletely and unproof-read OCR scanned version of their paper on
Augustus, but:

...
Of special interest is a notation of his suffering "certain disorders which
recurred every year: in early spring a tightness of the diaphragm; and when
the sirocco [31] blew, catarrh." [32] Their recurrent, seasonal, annual
pattern was characteristic of the pollen-allergic disorder that, in the
late 18th-early 19th century became known as "hay fever" and "hay asthma."
...
What then might have been the windborne agents that the sirocco brought to
Augustus that were responsible for triggering his visualized "hay fever"
and "hay asthma" symptoms? Certainly the pollen prevalence in Italy has
been well documented for the springtime and the autumn month of his
birthday (September). In the transition of winter to spring, tree pollens
(birch, hazelnut, and elm) appear. However, they are of minor importance in
comparison to the high allergenicity of the grasses (timothy, orchard,
meadow fox- tail, and rye) that follow, particularly in northern and
central sections of the country. In southern Italy, Augustus would have
been faced with Parietaria, a pellatory vine that grows abundantly on walls
and sides of buildings. In addition to its multiseasonal and prolonged
dispersion, Parietaria' s strong allergenic properties (probably greater
than even ragweed in the United States) make it a major cause of pollinosis
and highly associated with asthmatic manifestations. The stone
architectural features of Rome, providing walls for the growth of clinging,
ivy-like plants, could well have furnished an abundant source of wind
borne, causative Parietaria pollen to the affected residents (sensitized
senators and the emperor not excluded). Should Augustus have had reason to
travel and accompany the Roman legions to southern areas (Calabria and
Sicily), Tuscany and Cypress, he would have been additionally faced with
the allergenic pollen contribution of the Mediterranean Oleacia (olive
tree). One may speculate whether this allergen had contributed to his
reported "stupor" and illness during the battle of Naulochus.
...




It seems to me that a low perceived incidence of allergy in places
without modern medical care might simply be an artifact of the failure
of allergy sufferers to be diagnosed. One might, for instance, sneeze
when walking by a particular plant, but never make the connection. How
many people here have ever heard of a photic sneeze reflex? From what
I've heard, many people who have the trait don't realize there's
anything unusual in sneezing when first exposed to bright sunlight.

PTR



On Sep 5, 2004, at 8:17 PM, Ling Ouyang wrote:

My main problem exactly with these hypotheses correlating allergies and
hygiene.

At 04:40 PM 9/5/2004 -0400, you wrote:
Greetings,

But do we know there was a low prevalence in the ancient world? How
many anaphylactic reactions, e.g., to some food item or pollen or
whatever were interpreted as something else (maybe even poisoning?)??

regards,

dm

.................................................................
David Meadows dmeadows-AT-idirect-DOT-com
.................................................................
scholarly book reviews -- at rogueclassicism
http://www.atrium-media.com/rogueclassicism
.................................................................





On Sunday, September 5, 2004, multa scribuntur, inter alia:

RH> Thanks to H.A. Skinner, The Origin of Medical Terms (Williams and
Wilkins,
RH> Baltimore 1961) for the following information.

RH> The word 'allergy' is an early 20th century coinage by Clemens
von Pirquet
RH> about 1903, first seen in print in Muench. Med. Wochenschr, 24
July 1906.
RH> The phenomenon of hypersensitivity was recognised by physicians at
least as
RH> early as the Renaissance: Cardano (1501-76) took away a feather
pillow
and a
RH> rose ball from the asthmatic Archbishop of St Andrews. Edward
Jenner
RH> (1749-1823), the discoverer of vaccination with cowpox, described
allergy
RH> and anaphylaxis, though without using those terms.

RH> A widely held theory is that allergies including asthma are
caused, or at
RH> least encouraged, by an excessively hygienic upbringing, so that
the
child's
RH> immune system is not challenged. Certainly the distribution of
allergy in
RH> the world today seems to support that -- and the historical
examples
do not
RH> actually disprove it. If there is anything to the theory at all,
it neatly
RH> accounts for the low prevalence of such conditions in the
ancient, and
even
RH> the medieval, world.

RH> Ralph Hancock


Ling Ouyang
http://janusquirinus.org/


Ling Ouyang
http://janusquirinus.org/