Investigations with the 'Individual Pollen Collector' and the 'Burkard trap' with reference to hay fever patients

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Abstract
Pollen collecting devices such as the Hirst trap and the Burkard apparatus provide information on average pollen content in the air during a certain time in a certain volume of air (e.g., 24 h in 1 m3 air). They give no idea of the allergenic particles to which individual hay fever patients are exposed in the course of a day. An Individual Pollen Collector, attached to the patient''s clothing, showed that the counts varied considerably in different persons in the same place. They differed quantitatively and qualitatively from the values with the Burkard pollen and spore traps at 2 places in Switzerland. The slides from the Individual Pollen Collector frequently showed clouds of certain kinds of pollen grains, which could be responsible for hay fever attacks in moderately sensitized subjects.