Immunology in medicine is the clinical field concerned with diagnosis and treatment of immune system disorders and with the practice of vaccination and immunotherapy. Late in the nineteenth century, Emil von Behring and Paul Ehrlich developed serum therapy and antibody theory; the work of von Behring on diphtheria antitoxin earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901. Clinical allergy and immunology organized into a professional field in the United States through the Society for the Study of Asthma and Allied Conditions and the American Association for the Study of Allergy, which merged in 1943 to form the American Academy of Allergy. Formal board certification followed with the American Board of Allergy and Immunology in 1971 and full recognition by the American Board of Medical Specialties in 1974. This entity treats immunology as it is practiced in medicine, distinct from immunology as pursued in basic biological science.
Facts
Disputed
Origin Period1796 cowpox inoculation credited to Edward Jenner; predated by centuries of documented variolation practice in China and elsewhere 2 The 1796 cowpox trial by Edward Jenner is the credited founding act of vaccination in the clinical record, but variolation, deliberate infection with smallpox scab material, was already documented practice in China by around 1000 CE and was used across parts of Asia and the Ottoman Empire before reaching Britain. Medical historians genuinely debate how much credit belongs to the earlier, less formally documented tradition versus the 1796 experiment that established a scientific method. Classification
Type/Classification Learn More
Variolation to Vaccination: The Contested Origins of Immunology
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Before Edward Jenner tested cowpox material on eight-year-old James Phipps in May 1796, the only known defense against smallpox was variolation, deliberate infection with scab material taken from an infected person. Variolation was practiced in China as early as around 1000 CE and reached Europe in the early eighteenth century through travelers arriving from Istanbul. The trial conducted by Jenner showed that cowpox exposure, a far milder disease, produced immunity to smallpox without the risk carried by variolation, and by 1803 the method had been translated into French and Spanish and adopted for vaccination campaigns as far as the Americas and the Far East. Medical historians continue to debate how credit for founding immunization should be divided: the 1796 trial gave the practice a documented scientific method and the name vaccination, but variolation had already demonstrated the underlying principle, deliberate mild exposure producing immunity, for centuries in a tradition Western medicine did not originate. Reading the history honestly means holding both facts at once rather than crediting a single inventor.
How Immunology Became a Certified Medical Specialty
This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Clinical immunology organized slowly in the United States. Two early bodies, the Society for the Study of Asthma and Allied Conditions and the American Association for the Study of Allergy, merged in 1943 to form the American Academy of Allergy, while a separate organization, incorporated in November 1942, later became the American College of Allergists. Before formal certification existed, physicians practicing allergy and immunology typically trained first in internal medicine, pediatrics or otolaryngology, with no unified examination standard. That changed in 1971, when the American Board of Allergy and Immunology formed as a joint board of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the American Board of Pediatrics, and it has operated since as the specialty's board recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Decades earlier, the scientific foundation for the specialty had already been laid by Emil von Behring and Paul Ehrlich, whose work on serum therapy and antibody theory in the 1890s earned von Behring the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1901.
Immunology
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Connections
Associated With
Vaccination and immune response to pathogens sit at the shared boundary of the two specialties.
Autoimmune rheumatic disease is an immunologic field
Long-Form Articles
Notable Specialists
Source History of Vaccines: Edward Jenner Overview
Elie Metchnikoff discovered phagocytosis and is a Nobel laureate in immunology.
Emil von Behring developed diphtheria antitoxin and is called the father of serotherapy.
Source Karl Landsteiner (Wikipedia)
Attenuated vaccine development, most notably the rabies vaccine, places Pasteur work inside the immunological tradition alongside the bacteriological work already recorded on this atlas.
Treats
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Science Atlas: Immunology, the same subject.
Sources
1. ACAAI History Page
American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunologycollege.acaai.org ACAAIs History page
The American College of Allergists was officially incorporated as a legal entity on November 23, 1942.
entity description, Immunology
Immunology in medicine is the clinical field concerned with diagnosis and treatment of immune system disorders and with the practice of vaccination and immunotherapy.
View the Source 2. History of Vaccines: Edward Jenner Overview
College of Physicians of Philadelphiahistoryofvaccines.org Edward Jenner Overview page, main body text
In May 1796, a British physician named Edward Jenner tested his hypothesis that direct inoculation of a person with the much milder and less deadly cowpox would render that person immune to smallpox.
- Notable Specialists: Edward Jenner
View the Source Karl Landsteiner (Wikipedia)
Frequently Asked Questions
When did immunology become a formally certified medical specialty in the United States?
Board certification came in 1971 and full American Board of Medical Specialties recognition in 1974.
Clinical allergy and immunology organized as a professional field through the Society for the Study of Asthma and Allied Conditions and the American Association for the Study of Allergy, which merged in 1943 to form the American Academy of Allergy. Formal board certification followed with the American Board of Allergy and Immunology in 1971, and full recognition by the American Board of Medical Specialties came in 1974.
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