"Continuing the study of these analogies which, if not enough to prove a common origin, are enough to justify further study of the question, I find in one of my patients a morbid condition due to an arthritic source, _i.e._, an urticaria alternating with asthmatic coryza (hay fever), the latter appearing with symptoms such as _injection and itching and tumefaction of the eyes which recall the cutaneous affection to which it had succeeded_." (Italics mine. Here is my urticaria theory expressed in 1868. G. F. L.) "_Behind a vast number of nervous troubles, behind a vast number of bizarre functional anomalies stamped with a nervous imprint, we find arthritism._" (Italics mine. Here is my pet theory of the gouty origin of neurasthenia and perhaps Beard's _neurotic constitution_, beloved of rhinologists. G. F. L.) "As to analogies between summer catarrh and urticaria, I wish to draw no conclusions from them. If it be admitted that both are due to arthritism, their succession and the analogy in their local development can be understood." (My urticarial nature of the lesion again. G. F. L.) I might add that de Mussy reports success in preventing the appearance of the symptoms by the use of quinine for seven or eight days before the expected attack. During the attack he used sulphur and arsenic for the catarrh. In the next chapter we will consider the fate of de Mussy's theory of gout as the underlying cause of hay fever. CHAPTER VIII _HAY FEVER AS GOUT_ In the last chapter we read that the theory of a gouty diathesis as the constitutional basis for hay fever originated with Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, in 1868, on account of the many resemblances that he found between the symptoms of gout and the symptoms of hay fever. We have now to consider the fate of the de Mussy doctrine in those countries where hay fever is best known and has been most closely studied, Great Britain and America, Germany and France. =De Mussy in Great Britain and America.= If any specialist on the nose and throat in England or America ever heard of de Mussy and his theory that hay fever is rooted in a gouty diathesis, he is keeping the secret well, for it does not appear in any of the books that he writes; but in every book I find the disease attributed to the _neurotic constitution_ first suggested by Beard. In this statement I do not include several references to "uric acid poisoning" which is not the same thing as gout, as will be explained in Chapter IX, on the Uric Acid Theory.