Allergy through 20 centuries: Terminology of allergic phenomena

Over the last 2,000 years a variety of terms have been used for the description of phenomena possibly related to allergy. Many have been forgotten, while some of them have remained. In Greco-Roman literature the term 'idiosyncrasy' was used to describe an individual characterization of a health condition, possibly comparable to 'constitution'. The same term was also used to describe individual reaction patterns, and the term 'antipathy' was used in a similar sense. 'Hypersensitivity' originated from the German word 'Überempfindlichkeit' and was first used in a medical sense by Emil von Behring when he described untoward reactions to his antitoxin containing serum therapy. 'Anaphylaxis' was coined by Richet and Portier to describe the new phenomenon of a life-threatening general pathogenic reaction after repeated injection of antigen. In 1906, Clemens von Pirquet introduced the term 'allergy' in order to bring more clarity to the confusing debate regarding protective and harmful immunity. In order to characterize the familial occurrence of hypersensitivity reactions such as asthma, hay fever and others, the American allergists A.F. Coca and R.A. Cooke in troduced the term 'atopy'. Contrary to anaphylaxis, which was experimentally induced, this type of 'hypersensitiveness' occurred spontaneously. The nature of the pathogenic factor was called the 'atopic reagin' and was found to be transferable with serum by Prausnitz and Küstner. After the detection of immunoglobulin (Ig) E as the carrier of this type of hypersensitivity, the term 'atopy' gained a new sense, since IgE is a characteristic - yet not exclusive - parameter of the so-called atopic diseases. Clinically similar diseases such as asthma, rhinoconjunctivitis or eczema can be found in the absence of IgE, and are then called 'intrinsic' variants of the same disease.