Autoimmunity: A History of the Early Struggle for Recognition

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

The earliest discoveries in immunology were made in the context of the battle to ward off infectious diseases. These included Louis Pasteur's preventive vaccines, Ilya Metchnikoff's bacteria-eating phagocytes, and Behring and Kitasato's curative antidiphtheria and antitetanus sera. This chapter provides an adequate representation of the ways in which early immunologists dealt with the paradox presented by the almost oxymoronic word "immunopathology.” The chapter focuses on the early stirrings of interest in the possibility that disease might result from an immune response to an individual's own autochthonous antigens. Perhaps the initial reports were too premature to be incorporated into the received wisdom of the young field of immunology, just as the discovery of several allergic diseases could not at first be integrated. Certainly, Paul Ehrlich's dictum of "horror autotoxicus" contributed to an unwillingness to recognize the full significance of the initial findings of a response to spermatozoa, erythrocytes, and retina. But the mounting challenges to the dogma would eventually prove irresistible and the field of autoimmunity would finally flourish.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationThe Autoimmune Diseases, Fourth Edition
PublisherElsevier
Pages3-9
Number of pages7
ISBN (Electronic)9780125959612
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2006

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine
  • General Immunology and Microbiology

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