Abstract

When I, sometime later than first published, read the article in the Telegraph newspaper describing the work of Professor Gideon Lack. His observations whilst treating patients, especially very young ones, with emollients to alleviate their skin disorders. He was extremely thorough and took careful histories to search for the causes of their afflictions, i.e., rashes and broken skin. The articles is here, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ northamerica/usa/1424292/Peanut-allergy-is-linked-to-creams-for-skin-rashes.html and also available at, https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/food-thought/unexpected-sourcespeanut- allergy. What Prof Lack found very surprisingly was confirmation of some peoples view that peanut-allergy does in fact occur without prior consumption of peanuts or derivatives thereof [1]. Being an organic chemist of considerable experience, I realized from his results that the trigger of peanut allergy in these patients had to reside in the emollients he was using. I also knew of the industrial processing used to produce these emollients from fats, i.e., triglycerides, mostly in the early days from peanut oil, hence the first cases were allergy to peanuts.