Abstract
PERHAPS none of the minor ills to which humanity is prone has given rise to so much discussion as the subject under review. We have the views of those who regard it as a complaint due to “pollen”; of those, again, who look upon it as a neurosis, in which the much maligned and little understood “sympathetic system” is considered to play the chief part; and of others who attribute this and kindred disorders to the hurtful consequences of the presence of swellings, exostoses, bony ridges, &c., in the nasal cavities. The latter school relies on a mode of treatment which in its endeavours to clear the nose of all so-called obstructions, by the free use of the saw, the drill, the gouge, the dental engine and electric motor, &c., reminds one more of the efforts of a mechanic, anxious to bring the nasal cavities into comparison with a polished eburnated cylinder, than of the intelligent practitioner. This kind of thing is being carried to excess, and an earnest protest must be made against the officious and meddlesome surgery of the nasal passages which is advocated amongst a certain class of modern specialists.
Hay Fever and Paroxsymal Sneezing.
By Morell Mackenzie. Fourth Edition. Pp. 96. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1887.)
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Our Book Shelf . Nature 36, 363 (1887). https://doi.org/10.1038/036363a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/036363a0