Allergy historical perspective
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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
The term "allergy" was first coined in the early 1900s. It has since evolved into a number of distinct disease mechanisms linked to immune system activation that is disordered. With the discovery of immunoglobulin E (IgE) - Kimishige Ishizaka - in the 1960s, the overall study of allergy as a concept changed dramatically.
Historical Perspective
Clemens von Pirquet, a Viennese pediatrician, coined the term "allergy" in 1906 after observing that some of his patients were hypersensitive to normally harmless substances such as dust, pollen, or certain foods. Pirquet coined the term "allergy" from the Greek words allos, which means "other," and ergon, which means "work."Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag With this new classification, the word "allergy" was restricted to only type I hypersensitivities (also called immediate hypersensitivity), which are characterized as rapidly developing reactions.
A major breakthrough in understanding the mechanisms of allergy was the discovery of the antibody class labeled immunoglobulin E (IgE) - Kimishige Ishizaka and co-workers were the first to isolate and describe IgE in the 1960s.[1]