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Abstract
Outbreaks of bronchial asthma, defined by sharp peaks above the average number of emergency room visits at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, have been noted in this city since the early 1950’s. These outbreaks have occurred during the summer and fall, with the months of October and November containing the most frequent and severest episodes. Early work on this problem associated emissions from spontaneous underground burning in abandoned city dumps with the high incidence and extracts for skin testing prepared from the emissions produced a significant number of positive skin tests in persons involved in the asthma outbreaks. Recent investigation showed that other sources of allergenic air pollution in the city were related to the epidemics of asthma. Attention has been focused on a large public grain elevator at the Mississippi River in the southwestern portion of the city. Grain extracts have produced high percentages of positive responses in susceptible patients with low response rate found in control subjects. Persons known to have participated in these outbreaks have been characterized as being allergic; a low incidence of patients with chronic bronchitis and emphysema has been found in this group. New meteorological data regarding the outbreak periods has been collected.