Notes from the course BIOL 3240: Introduction to Immunology at the University of Virginia
History of Immunology:
Thucydides provided an account of plague occurence and subsequent immunizaiton, noting those who had survived a plague would not be re-infected upon reoccurence of the plague. One of the earliest observation of adaptive immunity:
Memory for disease
Specificity: protection for only that disease
Historically, there were two competing theories for disease immunity:
Expulsion theories: return to health requires expulsion of pathogen; disease is not representative of the pathogen itself but rather of the expulsion process.
Depletion theory: disease is caused by certain materials in the body that deplete the body's nutrients.