Mr. G. D. Pollock, F.R.C.S., delivering the annual address -at
St. George's Hospital on the opening of the Medical Session, gave on Monday some curious instances of idiosyncrasy. It is well known that there are many persons who cannot eat -.eggs, even unconsciously, without fainting or sickness ; but Mr. Pollock has known of a man who could not swallow rice without alarming symptoms. Biscuits were given him with one grain of rice in each, and they were eaten unconsciously, but still the symptoms followed. In another case a patient who suffered from eczema if he ate gooseberries was given some gooseberry champagne, and the eczemainstantly appeared. Mr. Pollock draws from these facts the deduction that treatment which succeeds with one patient fails with another; but we wish be had suggested some conceivable cause for idiosyncrasies. On what, in the patient, did the single grain of cooked rice exercise its influence,—on the membrane or the nerves, or some latent disease within the stomach ?
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