Studies in Contact Dermatitis

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Abstract
It has been thought that the dermatitis caused by pollen and experimentally reproducible by cutaneous testing with pollen oil, is due to the presence in the oil of the atopic excitant. We have been able to show that the dermatitis is not due to the atopic excitant but to the oil itself. Hypersensitiveness to the pollen oil occurs in 15 per cent of hay fever subjects, in 15 per cent of atopic persons not subject to hay fever and in 15 per cent of nonatopic persons. It is thus to be classified as a contact dermatitis similar in its nature to dermatitis due to poison ivy, sumac and primrose. The results of this investigation naturally suggest a similar differentiation of the excitant of atopy and of dermatitis in other materials, and it is obvious that this principle must be important to the diagnosis and also to the treatment of dermatitis caused by materials containing atopic excitants.

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