Atopic Dermatitis

“Immunology is a mixture of established fact, half knowledge, hopeful guessings and frank bewilderment.”

-W. W. C. Tapley:    An Outline of Immunity, William   Wood  & Co.,  1933.

Atopic dermatitis is brought about by the same abnormal constitu­tion which underlies hay fever and asthma, and is often the first mani­festation of this constitution. It is not uncommon for children to be afflicted with all three at the same time. About half of the infants who have atopic dermatitis later develop respiratory allergy. Atopic derma­titis is a disease of the young, although it may last well into adult life, and is occasionally even seen in the aged. Although it has been called by differ­ent names at different age periods, it is one and the same disease at all ages, and is best called atopic derma­titis at all ages.^* It is as much a constitutional disease as diabetes or pernicious anemia; what retards the treatment more than anything else is that it is not possible to change the constitution that is responsible for it. Like asthma, its fundamental basis is abnormal immunology, and, also like asthma, other stimuli not related to immunology, particularly psychologic, may greatly aggravate it.

*Hill, L. W., and Sulzberger, M. B. : Evo­lution of Atopic Dermatitis, Arch. Dermat. & Syph. 33: 451, 1935.