Hay Fever Falls Before Zinc Ions (Oct, 1936)
Hay Fever Falls Before Zinc Ions
HAY FEVER, that mysterious malady that deprives thousands of persons of their enjoyment of summer-time, is slowly yielding before the assaults of science.
The malady, which attacks the mucous membrane of the nose and throat, causing symptoms not unlike a severe head cold, is usually caused by pollen of a number of plants, the chief offender being ragweed.
At the University College Hospital, London, hay fever is being successfully treated by zinc ionization. An electric current is employed to release the zinc ions from a solution of zinc sulphate. These are passed to the patient by means of tubes, counteracting the irritation.
Does this actually work?
Hmmmm – well – if you were to pass air through an ioniser then the dust and pollen particles would be sucked out of the air, just as ionisers sold as air filters do today. But the down side is that you would need to wear it all the time
Seems to me that things like Zicam are using gels inserted into the nostrils for a similar purpose. Maybe these people just had colds?
Doesn’t work a bit for hay fever.
For that matter, neither do most ionizers.
Ionizers are pretty much crap. They lack a fan which severely limits the amount of air to be pulled through the machine. Furthermore, they usually lack filters which results in poor filtration of the air as after the surface is covered very little will be filtered out of the air. Finally, the release O3 (ozone) into your environment which is an irritant in itself.
I believe the ionizer just allowed the zinc to be inhaled.
Nowadays we have Zicam and various zinc lozenges.