Clinical manifestations of heat and effort sensitiveness and cold sensitiveness (relationship to heat prostration, effort syndrome, asthma, urticaria, dermatoses, noninfectious coryza and infections)

Abstract

In this paper are enumerated a series of relatively common illnesses which rather frequently are caused, I believe, by disorder in the heat regulating mechanism. These illnesses include heat prostration, the effort syndrome, noninfectious coryza, asthma, urticaria, dermatoses and other miscellaneous ailments. Allergic reactions to foreign substances, such as egg or pollen, give rise to symptoms similar to those caused by sensitiveness to heat and effort or to cold and may therefore add to the manifestations of heat and cold sensitiveness. In many persons, adequate cause for heat and cold sensitiveness can be discovered in the finding of organic disease. In others, no pathologic process can be found, except abnormal responses to heat or cold. In this case, one frequently finds a history of an acute febrile disease just antedating the onset of the illness. It seems possible that under certain conditions the abnormal level at which the heat regulating mechanism works during a febrile disease or during convalescence is maintained and gives rise to abnormal responses to heat and cold for prolonged periods of time or permanently. In patients such as these, the ailments of which they complain can usually be reproduced objectively by the adequate and suitable application of heat and effort or by cold. During reactions of the types described caused by heat and cold sensitiveness, many patients are hypersusceptible to infection. The diagnosis of the condition can be made by history and practical tests. The treatment of the condition may be brilliantly successful in certain types of cases.