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Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes
By Gregg Mitman, 312 pp, $30.
New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2007.
ISBN-13 978-0-3004-1035-7.
JAMA. 2007;298(18):2204-2205.
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In the grand scheme of things, allergies are a relatively new human phenomenon. Allergic disorders, rarely referred to in medical writing prior to the 20th century, have become a modern scourge, and Gregg Mitman's book is a refreshing chronicle of the complex interplay of nature and nurture that have characterized these illnesses.
In the first chapter, Mitman chronicles the rise of the "hay fever holiday." More recently termed seasonal allergic rhinitis, hay fever in 19th-century United States was just being recognized, although certainly not understood. It was a prestigious condition and considered a disease of the culturally refined, aristocratic classes, perhaps due to the nervous exhaustion that accompanied the rigors of the modern life of leading citizens. Hay fever associations, many of which were exclusive clubs, were popular in the late 1800s. Persons of means escaped the urban "summer catarrh" by vacationing in rural resorts in the White Mountains, near . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Katherine Gundling, MD, Reviewer
University of California at San Francisco
katherine.gundling@ucsf.edu
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