THE GENERAL HEALTH AND MENTAL ACTIVITY OF ALLERGIC CHILDREN

In a recent work¹ on the hereditary factor in allergic diseases, the rôle played by heredity in determining the general health of allergic patients was studied in a series of 1,217 patients, most of whom were adults. From the history and from physical and laboratory observations, it appeared that only 7.2 per cent of all patients were below normal, and that 74.9 per cent were above normal in general health. From my observations I was led to believe that patients suffering from allergic diseases have a superresistance to pathogenic organisms. The mental activity of forty allergic and forty nonallergic children was studied. Seventy per cent of the allergic children were above normal, which is in marked contrast to 15 per cent of the nonallergic children whose mental activity was above normal. From the observations it appeared that allergic children are above normal in mental activity. The furtherance of my