VEGETABLE DUST PNEUMOCONIOSES - IMMUNOLOGIC RESPONSES TO VEGETABLE DUSTS + THEIR FLORA

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Abstract
Inhalation of vegetable dusts with their fungal and other flora, exemplified by moldy hay, may provoke either the asthmatic or the farmer''s lung type of reaction. In atopic asthma, an immediate type of allergy mediated by reaginic, nonprecipitating antibody is present, whereas in farmer''s lung only precipitating antibody has been found, and there is suggestive but not unequivocal evidence for its participation. Tests with extracts of Aspergillus fumigatus, Cladosporium herbarum, and Mucor sp. and with extracts of cotton, kapok, house dust, unscreened malt, sisal, bagasse, Indian hemp, moldy hay, coffee, and palm kernales were based on precipitin-containing sera from patients with either farmer''s lung or pulmonary aspergillosis. Both groups of sera, and particularly the farmer''s lung sera, had a high incidence of precipitins to all the extracts; the aspergillosis sera reacted to fungal antigens in the vegetable dusts and the farmer''s lung sera, to fungal and other antigens. Extracts of sisal and coffee gave frequent reactions with the sera of subjects working with them, showing the effects of exposure to particular dusts. Related antigens were found in the fungal and dust extracts, and reactions were obtained with the gamma-globulin of the appropriate sera. There was no relationship between pricipitation reactions and blood groups. Precipitation reactions of the C-substance-C-reactive protein type were also produced, especially by the extract of palm kernels and with the sera of plantation workers which contained C-protein. Other late-appearing precipitation reactions of certain extracts with the sera of nonexposed subjects were not obtained with the gamma-globulin. Certain coffee extracts, however, gave reactions with the gimma-globulin of nonexposed subjects.