{"id":1525,"date":"2008-04-22T17:05:43","date_gmt":"2008-04-22T15:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2020-02-11T05:56:32","modified_gmt":"2020-02-11T05:56:32","slug":"helmholtz-on-the-cure-of-hayfever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2008\/04\/helmholtz-on-the-cure-of-hayfever\/","title":{"rendered":"Herrmann von Helmholtz on the cure of hayfever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was difficult to find but I knew it should be there: a letter of Herrmann von Helmholtz about his private attempt to cure hay fever. Published in the increasingly<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/about\/history-of-nature\">\u00a0important Nature magazine<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/volumes\/10\/issues\/236\">May 14, 1874<\/a> von Helmholtz <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/010026d0\">describes the vibrio like bodies in his own nasal fluid<\/a> and the successful local treatment with quinine.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/helmholtz.png\" data-rel=\"key-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"480\" height=\"532\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1526\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/helmholtz.png\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/helmholtz.png 480w, https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/04\/helmholtz-270x300.png 270w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately there is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/024485a0\">consecutive letter<\/a> that did not confirm this effect. I also do not know how this treatment would have worked. Fiction, placebo or true antiparasitic side-effect? We even know of quinine induced allergy, making even reverse causation possible.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>G. Kanny, J. Flabb\u00e9e, M. Morisset M, D. Moneret Vautrin. Allergy to quinine and tonic water. Eur J Intern Med 14 (2003), p. 395-396.<br \/>\nR. Cundall, Idiosyncrasy to quinine in bitter lemon. Br Med J 20 (1964), p. 1638.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"bottom-note\">\n  <span class=\"mod1\">CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 02.06.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was difficult to find but I knew it should be there: a letter of Herrmann von Helmholtz about his private attempt to cure hay fever. Published in the increasingly\u00a0important Nature magazine on May 14, 1874 von Helmholtz describes the vibrio like bodies in his own nasal fluid and the successful local treatment with quinine. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/sciencesurf\/2008\/04\/helmholtz-on-the-cure-of-hayfever\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Herrmann von Helmholtz on the cure of hayfever<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1795],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asthma-allergy","tag-history-hay-fever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15360,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions\/15360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wjst.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}