In our text-books, our ablest specialists perpetuate this error by devising such names as _hyperæsthetic catarrh_, _hyperæsthetic rhinitis_, _vaso-motor rhinitis_--and then describing a neurosis. The two ideas will not mix. The very authors who introduce these names feel that there is something wrong with them, for usually they take several pages to explain what the name means. It is better to throw overboard both the name and the idea of catarrhal inflammation or rhinitis and start afresh. Recent workers with pollens come near the truth in describing hay fever as an anaphylaxis. Right here my conception of the lesion of hay fever as an urticaria fits into the picture and brings us one step nearer to an understanding of the disease; for where is there a prettier example of anaphylaxis than those very hives with which long ago I compared the lesion of hay fever? Since Bostock first described hay fever in 1816, hundreds of physicians have looked at thousands of patients, but, as far as I can discover, there was just one observer besides the modest author of this book who recognized the urticarial nature of the lesion of hay fever. This was Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, to whom we will devote the next chapter. =The Cause Behind the Lesion.= All clinicians agree that there are two elements in the hay fever problem,--first, the irritant; and secondly, the abnormal sensitiveness of the patient. All are fairly well agreed as to the irritants, pollen and dust; but what makes the patient sensitive? This is still the dark side of the subject. Among the many theories, two seem to deserve further study and will be considered in the chapters on Hay Fever as Gout and Hay Fever as Anaphylaxis. CHAPTER VII _DR. GUENEAU DE MUSSY HAY FEVER AS URTICARIA AGAIN_