Nov 27 2007
History of Allergy
The oldest record of an allergic reaction that led to death is that of King Menses of Egypt, who died following a wasp sting around 3500 BC.
The term “allergisch” was coined in 1906 by Clement Von Pirquet, a Viennese pediatrician, after observing subjects injected with the tuberculosis bacteria that had prior exposure reacted differently from those who had no prior exposure.
In 1869, the foundation of today’s Patch Test was laid down by Charles Blakely, who applied pollen through a small break in his skin, and observed that urticaria in the test area suggested hypersensitivity to pollen.
Between the mid 1930s to the late 1940s, major breakthroughs in the treatment of allergy were the discovery of the first antihistamine drug and the use of corticosteroids for asthma.
Perhaps the most important allergy-related discovery of the 20th was that of leukotrienes by Professor Bengt I Sameulsson in the early 1980s. Leukotrienes are natural substances in the body that contribute to asthma attacks. His work on leukotrienes won him a Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology.