History
430-370 B.C.
- People had strong immune systems.
- Sometimes, innocent hosts were accused of poisoning their guests
if they had an allergic reaction.
- Allergies were thought of as non-existent.
- Hippocrates and other Greek philosophers noticed that some foods
made people sick.
- “Most [food allergies] are curable by the same means as those by
which produced.”- Hippocrates
Fifteenth Century
- Some doctors figured out the correspondence between the allergens
and the violent reactions, but most didn’t know how to treat them.
- Some treatments required patients being bled.
-
Fun Fact- King Richard III knew he was allergic to strawberries, so he
ate them before a meeting with his ex-best friend, Lord William
Hastings. When Richard III started swelling and developing hives, he
accused Hastings of putting a curse on him.
1800s and Beyond
- Dr. John Bostock accurately described hay fever (seasonal
allergic rhinitus) as a disease that affected the upper
respiratory tract. Hay fever affects more than 15 million
Americans.
- Charles Richet and Paul Portier invented the word
'anaphylaxis' when they discovered this life-threatening response to medications and protein substances.
Anaphylactic shock occurs within minutes after allergen
exposure.
- Clemens von Pirquet first used the word 'allergy'
to describe the strange, non-disease related symptoms that some
patients developed when treated with a horse serum antitoxin.
The word comes from the Greek word 'alol', meaning, 'change in
the original state.'
Either due to
existence of strong
immune systems or
due to ignorance,
food allergies
weren't understood
till 1800s.