“My observation convinces me that the victims of hay fever are generally those who work with their brains rather than with their hands.”
-M. Richards Muckle, president of the U.S. Hay Fever Association, quoted in the Tribune in 1879
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With spring allergy season in full swing, Flashback looks wistfully, with red, itchy eyes, back at the days when hay fever was a status symbol. Late in the 19th Century, it was believed that hay fever was a nervous condition brought on by the stresses of urban life, as rural folk rarely contracted it. Sounded like a great excuse for a vacation, and the elite classes planned their restorative trips to the ocean or mountains around ragweed season in August. Antihistamines have provided a much cheaper solution since the 1940s, but why take chances? Take a trip anyway.
Percentage of Americans who test positive to one or more allergies: 54.6.
U.S. secretary of state who resigned for health reasons after complaining to the president that his hay fever might be rendering him unfit for office: Daniel Webster.
Rank of Chicago among the “most challenging places to live with asthma”: 13. Rank of Atlanta: 1.
Approximate speed of a sneeze: 100 m.p.h.
Sources: Tribune archives; “Hay Fever Holiday: Health, Leisure and Place in Gilded-Age America” by Gregg Mitman, Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2003); American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology; Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.
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nwatkins@tribune.com
