Studies in Tobacco Hypersensitivity

Abstract In previous publications (1, 2 and 5), attention has been called to the fact that patients suffering from thromboangiitis obliterans have a skin hypersensitiveness to tobacco and, in some cases, to other allergens (frequently inhalants (1, 5). This is demonstrable by the fact that these patients react with immediate wheal reactions to the intradermal injection of the allergens in question.2 In the following, we report the results of passive transference experiments with the sera of 22 unselected consecutive cases of thromboangiitis obliterans; as well as with the sera of 3 patients suffering from other conditions, who also had a marked immediate wheal reaction to intradermal skin tests with tobacco. The technic which we have employed in our passive transference experiments is one which has been used by one of us (S.) in many hundreds of experiments, during the last eight years.