The Pathology of Bronchial Asthma

INTRODUCTION In a clinical study of a certain type of food asthma, published nearly ten years ago,1one of us expressed the conception that bronchial asthma is a manifestation of allergy in the human, in the following concluding sentences: "In most cases of bronchial asthma the causative factor lies in the allergic reactibility of the individual," and, "The multiplicity of asthmatogenous substances is explained by the multiplicity of proteins which may act as anaphylactogens." The later clinical and immunologic studies of Walker, Cooke, Rackeman, and Mackenzie, undertaken from the same point of view, have greatly elaborated the evidence for this conception and have brought forward more detailed proofs for its correctness and general validity for the majority of all cases of asthma. Since allergy in the end means changed tissue reaction, it is obvious that the investigation of any allergic condition in the human must necessarily take up the question