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Formaldehyde Hypersensitiveness an Experimental Study

From the Department of Bacteriology and Immunology, Harvard University Medical School

Abstract

Hypersensitiveness to relatively simple chemical substances is very common, and usually manifests itself in the skin. McConnell (1) states that 27 per cent of two thousand industrial workers suffered from chemical dermatoses. Knowles estimates that onesixth of all skin disease is chemical in origin, while Hazen places the figure at one-fifth, and White at one-fourth (quoted by Cole and Driver (2)).

It is our purpose to consider only hypersensitiveness to formaldehyde (HCHO). This paper is concerned chiefly with the pathogenesis and etiology of the condition, and records those experiments carried out each day, for a period of six months, upon an individual sensitive to formaldehyde in a dilution of 1:8,000,000.

Since Hofmann (3) discovered formaldehyde in 1867 there have been reported but 18 cases of hypersensitivity to the aldehyde, and of these none have been investigated from an experimental viewpoint. No attempt will be made to describe the clinical characteristics of formaldehyde hypersensitiveness, as this has been well done by Galewsky (4), Thilo (5), Blaschko (6), and Chajas (7).

Footnotes

¹ House Officer in Pathology, Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston.