Use of Diphtheria Toxin and Toxoid in the Study of Immediate and Delayed Hypersensitivity in Man

[摘要] Few areas in modern medicine remain so beclouded in mystery as the so-called allergic diseases. A substantial proportion of the human race each year suffers to a varying degree from asthma, hay fever, food allergies, drug allergies, contact dermatitis, and other unpleasant kinds of allergic manifestations. While there are few who would deny that hypersensitivity reactions, whether of the immediate or of the delayed inflammatory type, are triggered by a reaction in vivo between antigen and some form of antibody, we understand very little of how cellular damage is caused. It has been firmly established, in the case of the hay-fever type of allergy, that serum antibody is involved, and there is an increasing body of evidence which suggests that the type of antibody concerned (atopic reagin) possesses chemical as well as biological properties which distinguish it from the usual type of precipitating antibody studied by the immunologist in the laboratory.

[学科分类] 生物科学（综合）