OCR Text |
Show HOIITWELL May L. Mower James Powell Is Home From Hospital Jamas L. Powell is at home again after spending a few days at the Roosevelt Hospital, where he has been under doctor's care for severe burns, suffered when he tried to put out a fire in his stack yard. The fire eventually burned 5 stacks of hay. The neighbors neigh-bors and friends of the Powells gathered and worked until morning morn-ing to put the fire out. It was set off by Mr. Powell's 7-year-old son who was making a little fire with a match. The Special Interest class held their annual county fair Friday evening at the ward house. Exhibits Exhib-its were displayed, games played and refreshments served. Your Doctor nys m The following is one of a series of articles written by members of the Utah State Medical Association and published in cooperation with your local newspaper. These articles are scheduled to appear every other week throughout the year in an effort to better acquaint you with problems of health, and designed to improve the well-being of the people of Utah. HAY FEVER More than 6,000,000 people in the United States suffer annually from hay fever and statistics indicate that the incidence is slowly but progressively increasing each year. This common malady, whose victims vic-tims have been the subject of many jokes and cartoons in the past, is no laughing matter to the person who suffers from it. The uncomfortable uncom-fortable symptoms of sneezing, eye and throat irritation, running nose, nasal stuffiness and cough are most likely to appear in warm weather, although approximately 15 of all hay fever suffers are bothered perennially. The term "hay fever" is an unfortunate un-fortunate and complete misnomer. As a matter of fact, the malady is seldom caused by hay, and fever is not at all characteristic of the disorder. dis-order. The term "rose fever" has sometimes been used as a synonym for hay fever, although the rose pollen seldom causes trouble. The high incidence of hay fever in warm weather is due largely to plant pollens. Pollen grains of various var-ious kinds are responsible for so much hay fever discomfort that it would sometimes seem as if their destiny is to make people uncomfortable. uncom-fortable. The real function of pollen pol-len is, of course, to fertilize the ovum of a plant, thus making possible pos-sible the production of seeds and the propagation of the plant species. spec-ies. Some pollens are sticky and heavy, notably the flower pollens and depend upon insects for dis semination. Such pollens causi very little hay fever, since they an too heavy to be found in the air in appreciable quantities. On the other hand pollen grains of trees, grasses and weeds are light and usually buoyant, which facilitates widespread dissemination by wind; therefore, the pollens of trees, grasses and weeds are present in large numbers in the atmosphere and cause a great deal of hay fever. In the intermountain region tree pollens cause hay I fever in the spring. Such trees, as boxelder, maple, Cottonwood and poplar are the chief offenders, although it is not unusual for a person to, be bothered by the pollens of scrub oak, juniper, cedar, elm and cer-. cer-. tain others. On - occasions symp- toms may be caused by lilac, for-sythia for-sythia and other flowering shrubs and trees. Grass pollens usually appear in the air in May and are quite prevalent pre-valent throughout June, July and part of August. Orchard grass, June grass, meadow fescue, giant wild rye and others comprise this group. Individuals bothered by grass pollen may develop symptoms symp-toms when cutting the lawn or going through fields in which the wild grasses are growing. Weed pollens appear in July, " August and September and are responsible re-sponsible for much of the hay fever encountered in the intermountain area. Particularly bothersome are Russian thistle (tumble weed), ragweed, rag-weed, Mexican fire bush (burning bush) and the various varieties of sage (sagebrush). Also capable of causing symptoms are dandelion, pigweed (redroot), poverty weed ( careless weed), lamb's quarters (goose-foot), shadscale, and grease wood. In areas where sugar beets are being raised for seed, the pollen pol-len can cause typical hay fever when the plants are in bloom. If an individual has nasal allergy throughout the year he may be allergic al-lergic to such things as house dust, animal hair and dander, feathers, wool, mold spores, foods and even to his own bacteria. This type of hay fever is especially bothersome since the sufferer can not look forward for-ward to relief in any particular season. In such instances frequent "colds" are bothersome and constitute con-stitute one of the commoner complaints com-plaints presented by the patient. Actually the symptoms are not due to ordinary colds, but are characteristic charac-teristic of the perennial nasal allergy. al-lergy. The causes of hay fever are most often determined by skin tests, although al-though much information is obtained obtain-ed by the medical history and physical phy-sical examination. Skin tests which are properly applied and interpreted usually point the way to successful treatment by the use of desensitizing desensitiz-ing serums. These tests also often indicate that certain substances (inhalants, foods and so forth) should be avoided or controlled and try often such measures are extremely ex-tremely helpful in controlling symptoms. Treatment thus directed direct-ed ordinarily does not cure the allergy in the sense that Penicillin usually cures a Streptococcus sore throat, but rather controls the condition. con-dition. Often this leads to highly satisfactory relief of symptoms and a complete alteration in the basic allergic condition. While hay fever is quite capable of causing unpleasant symptoms, the principal significance of the disorder actually lies in the possibility possi-bility that the sufferer may develop de-velop asthma at a later date. Approximately Ap-proximately 25 to 40 of the patients pa-tients who have hay fever are prone to develop asthma at some time. Asthma, of course, is a considerably con-siderably more severe disorder which affects a vital structure, the bronchial tree, and therefore must be prevented when possible. |