How was Allergy Discovered?

In 1902, two French scientists injected dogs with a small amount of extract from the sea anemone. Nothing happened. A week later, they repeated the procedure in exactly the same way - and watched, amazed, as the animals developed severe reactions.

The dogs had somehow become sensitive to the formerly harmless substance. The researchers had discovered allergy. In allergy, the immune system makes a mistake and ‘remembers’ and then reacts to harmless foreign substances as if they were harmful. These otherwise harmless foreign substances are called allergens. Allergy symptoms are the result of the immune system reacting to an allergen. When a person develops an allergy they are described as having become ‘sensitized’ to that particular allergen.

In the decades since that landmark series of sea anemone experiments, scientists have come to know a great deal about the phenomenon called allergy. In fact, in 1965, scientists at the National Jewish Health discovered the allergy antibody (called IgE) that is involved in all true allergic reactions. Ironically, allergy symptoms result when the immune system makes the IgE antibody in an effort to protect us from otherwise harmless allergens.

Click here to learn more about the history of Nation Jewish Respiratory Hospital.