Infectious Asthma and Its Relationship to Chronic Sinus and Pulmonary Disease

Under the impetus given by the expansion of the concept of protein hypersensitiveness as a fundamental expression of this malady, great strides have been made in the understanding of some of the etiologic factors involved. The brilliant contributions of Meltzer,¹Landsteiner,²Coca,³Cook,⁴Walker,⁵Schloss,⁶Rackeman,⁷and Prausnitz and Kustner,⁸not to mention others, both from the laboratory and the clinical aspects, have been largely responsible for the advances in this field. Nevertheless, we often wonder whether the idea of allergy, which is so rapidly acquiring new and different connotations, is not clouding the physician's vision and hampering him in the understanding of certain syndromes similar in appearance but different in their underlying mechanism. Thus, in the study of the asthma problem in adults, the allergic enthusiast may be confronted with an impasse in at least 47 per cent of cases according