ALLERGIC PHENOMENA IN TUBERCULOUS KERATITIS

Abstract

The words allergy and anaphylaxis seem to have lost their earlier sharp distinction of meaning. Many of the recent reports on protein reactions are somewhat confusing to the reader because of the uncertainty regarding the nature of the phenomena described. Indeed, Van Leeuwen,1Doerr and others have expressed the opinion that allergy and anaphylaxis are quite similar and may be only variations of one reaction. Richet, in 1902, was the first to use the term anaphylaxis, and described it as a shocklike reaction induced in an animal by the second injection of a protein to which it had been previously sensitized. The symptoms of the many reports subsequently published were chills, fever, collapse, prostration and sometimes death. In 1916, Cooke2introduced the term allergy to designate a number of conditions which show one common etiologic characteristic, namely, hypersensitiveness to proteins or other substances which are innocuous to