History of Allergies
Increasingly, allergies have become household concerns. This has been considered the epidemic of the twenty-first century. The rise of allergies has caused both allergy sufferers and physicians to explore options in allergy control, treatment, and cures. The earliest known report of an allergy was that of King Menses of Egypt, who died after a wasp sting some time between 3640 and 3300 BC. Another ancient report of an allergy is that of roman emperor Claudius’s son, Brittanicus, who was allergic to horses and developed rashes that prevented him from riding [1]. The concept of allergies was first introduced in 1906 after a physician noted that some patients were hypersensitive to normally harmless entities such as dust, pollen, or certain foods. Initially, all forms of hypersensitivity were classified as allergies and were considered improper activation of the immune system [1]. It later became clear that several different disease mechanisms were implicated, with the common link to a disordered activation of the immune system. In 1963, a new classification scheme was designed that described four types of hypersensitivity reactions, known as type 1 to type 4 hypersensitivity. With this classification the word “allergy” was restricted to type 1 hypersensitivities, which are characterized as rapidly developing reactions [1].
[EO]
[EO]