THE AUTOHEMIC TREATMENT OF RHUS TOXICODENDRON DERMATITIS

In the summer of 1930 a patient came under my observation suffering from an extensive poison-ivy dermatitis, which had occurred during the three preceding summers. On his way home from the office he was in an automobile accident and sustained a fracture of the thigh, with extensive extravasation of blood at the site of injury. Within thirty-six hours the dermatitis disappeared. The question was, what had caused the serologic changes that led to the prompt disappearance of the dermatosis? The inference was, of course, that the extravasated blood had produced the phenomenon. That an individual's own whole blood outside its normal channels would obliterate this type of dermatitis seemed a reasonable hypothesis. This gave rise to the theory that in a case of poison-ivy dermatitis, the individual's own whole blood injected into the tissues would act as a curative agent.

Acting on this theory, the treatment was