HISTORY OF IMMUNOLOGY

History of immunology

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History of immunology

Immunology

The subject of immunology is associated with one of the branches of science that is; biomedicine. Immunology deals with the immune system and how to get immunity from different diseases. It deals with the structure and functioning of immune system. From many decades this discipline is alive and it's evolving continuously. As every discipline that is alive and continuously evolving in this world possess some history so does this field of immunology (Kroker, 2008).

History of immunology

Before this field of immunology had established it was assumed that diseases and wounds are the curse of God and it is given to them as a punishment, this was the belief of western societies, on the other hand, eastern societies had a little rational approach they used to think that these wounds and diseases occur because some of the systems inside the body are not functioning well. (K,Lee & Brenda, 2003)

Afterwards people began to develop observations with regard to diseases and how to prevent a human body from these diseases and that is how the birth of immunology took place. History of immunology can be explained by dividing it in two parts. First part would be experiential immunology period (from 17th to 19th century) and modern immunology period which was the period when immunology considered as independent subject (period from 1971 to onwards).

Experiential immunology period

It was a period when immunology was not well developed. This was a time period of 17th to 19th century. At that time few diseases were very common with which people of that time was suffering. These diseases include; plague cholera and small pox (Mazumdar, 1989).

Variolation

Many people assume that the work of Edward is the first development in the field of immunology. However, a same procedure was being practiced by Chinese practitioners. This procedure was known as variolation. Under this system what Chinese practitioners used to do is that they put the material of the disease either under the skin or inside the nose. As they did not have any particular standards to measure how much material to instill according to the nature and intensity of disease it resulted in death. But during the period of 1740's variolation became really popular in England and also showed positive results but it was also considered as the risky practice (Mazumdar, 1989).

Edward Jenner's development of vaccine

Jenner is the person who attempted to provide first scientific vaccination to infectious disease. In 1796, Jenner found a dairy maid whose name was Sarah Nelms. Jenner found wounds of cowpox on her hands. Jenner used the material of that cowpox and injected into a boy. That boy initially suffered from a mild fever but after few days he was fine and that is how Jenner's vaccine of smallpox came into existence. (Forsdyke, 2001)

Koch, Pasteur and the germ theory of disease

Robert Koch was the one to describe the idea that germs can be transferred. He injected the ear of a rabbit with the blood of an animal having anthrax virus. That rabbit ...