total allergy syndrome

English

Noun

total allergy syndrome (uncountable)

1. A supposed illness with various symptoms caused by sensitivity to various substances in the modern environment.
   • 1984, New Scientist, volume 104, number 1425, page 34:

     DO YOU REMEMBER the "total allergy syndrome"? Barely more than a couple of years ago, worthy citizens of this sceptre'd isle were flaking out all over the place because the poor unfortunates believed themselves allergic to the world — not just, say to crabs or house mites or pencillin, or any other of the items on the long list of proven allergies which cause some of us to itch or wheeze or drop down dead.