Auto-antibodies can exist in small amounts in normal organisms and appear in quantity after
tissue destruction or alteration by exogeneous agents. Assuming that the immunological …

Since Burnet first introduced his “forbidden clones” theory, the discrimination between self
and non-self and the physiologic mechanisms of avoiding autoimmunity remained an …

Historically, the first observations of immunological phenomena concerned protection
against infectious agents. Since that time and despite the discovery of anaphylaxis (the …

A general review of this subject was made for this series by Dixon (1) in 1958, and Holman
(2) subsequently covered the more specialized topic of systemic lupus erythematosus …

Medicine has been the mother of all the biological sciences. There are many reasons for
this, but one of them is specially relevant to my present topic. It is simply that while the body …

Boyden (1965) and Michael (1969) began their reviews on natural antibodies by stating,
respectively, that “Although a great deal has been written about the antibodies present in …

The idea that the body can develop an immune reaction against one of its own constituents
has been rather slow of acceptance. This is based partly on the old fashioned concept that …

Almost the whole of my immunological thinking has been concerned with a phenomenon
first clearly recognized by Ehrlich and for which his phrase,'horror autotoxicus', has survived …

The human mind easily accepts all that seems logical and rational to it and, on this basis, a
concept can be developed which, even if proven to be totally or partially false at a later date …

SINCE the earliest descriptions of the immune system, the ability of an individual to react to a
wide variety of foreign and endogenous antigens, while not responding to one's own self …