now of
a gentleman in whom sneezing is provoked on the ingestion of chocolate
in any form. There was another instance--in a member of the medical
profession--who suffered from urticaria after eating veal. Veal has the
reputation of being particularly indigestible, and the foregoing
instance of the production of urticaria from its use is doubtless not
an uncommon one.

Overton cites a striking case of constitutional peculiarity or
idiosyncrasy in which wheat flour in any form, the staff of life, an
article hourly prayed for by all Christian nations as the first and
most indispensable of earthly blessings, proved to one unfortunate
individual a prompt and dreadful poison. The patient's name was David
Waller, and he was born in Pittsylvania County, Va., about the year
1780. He was the eighth child of his parents, and, together with all
his brothers and sisters, was stout and healthy. At the time of
observation Waller was about fifty years of age. He had dark hair, gray
eyes, dark complexion, was of bilious and irascible temperament, well
formed, muscular and strong, and in all respects healthy as any man,
with the single exception of his peculiar idiosyncrasy. He had been the
subject of but few diseases, although he was attacked by the epidemic
of 1816. From the history of his parents and an inquiry into the health
of his ancestry, nothing could be found which could establish the fact
of heredity in his peculiar disposition. Despite every advantage of
stature, constitution, and heredity, David Waller was through life,
from his cradle to his grave, the victim of what is possibly a unique
idiosyncrasy of constitution. In his own words he declared: "Of two
equal quantities of tartar and wheat flour, not more than a dose of the
former, he would rather swallow the tartar than the wheat flour." If he
ate flour in any form or however combined, in the smallest quantity, in
two minutes or less he would have painful itching over the whole body,
accompanied by severe colic and tormina in the bowels, great sickness
in the stomach, and continued vomiting, which he declared was ten times
as distressing as the symptoms caused by the ingestion of tartar
emetic. In about ten minutes after eating the flour the itching would
be greatly intensified, especially about the head, face, and eyes, but
tormenting all parts of the body, and not to be appeased. These
symptoms continued for two days with intolerable violence, and only
declined on th