Immunology has passed its long years and now its wave has conquered all the spaces of experimental sciences.
We are talking about immunology, which has emerged as an independent science in the field of science in recent years, and especially as one of the newest fields in medicine, it has created changes. Also, this science plays an important role in the progress of many other experimental sciences such as biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, and pathology. The order governing the immune system is an amazing order that the living being inevitably strives for in order to continue living. Demi does not stop fighting. The quality of creation of living beings and the characteristics of creation and the wonderful world inside them is the scene of a continuous and all-out struggle against millions of pathogenic and non-pathogenic factors, which if there is no internal conflict, there will be no trace of life. With the help of the immune system, every living being makes natural conditions favorable for life, so it is the innate intelligence and evolution of this system that protects the living being from external and internal factors and gives it the power to live. If we look at the roots of this science, we can see that the word “Immune” is derived from its Latin root “Immunis”, which means to be exempt from payment such as taxes, etc. For about a century, immunity was considered to be the body’s resistance to the invasion of infectious agents or the body’s resistance to the repeated invasion of pathogenic agents.
In China and some Asian countries that were in the territory of Islamic rule and had rich knowledge and culture, in order to create immunity, the fluid from the vesicles of people suffering from smallpox, which was a fatal disease, was applied to the bodies of healthy people and so called a kind of inoculation. They used to say that immunity would be created in this way. In general, immunology was a well-known science in China and the Islamic Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries, and at that time, due to the fact that smallpox was extremely common and extremely dangerous in the world, dry scales were used to create immunity against the deadly disease. Smallpox skins were ground into powder and healthy people who were at risk of the disease inhaled this powder, and thus a kind of immunity was created.
In the western world, despite the terrible slaughter and high prevalence of this disease, no measures were taken to prevent it.
In some countries, especially England, the range of prevalence and deterioration of patients’ condition was higher than in other European countries. The wife of England’s ambassador to the court of the Ottoman Emperor (modern day Turkey), whose name was Wortley Montagu Lady Mary, wrote a letter to one of her friends in England to introduce a type of immunity, and it is not bad to include a part of this letter as a document of honor for the Muslims who at that time The ominous shadow of colonialism had not yet spread over them, and they were not alien to Islamic culture, and as evidenced by western historians, they were leaders in many sciences, hoping that this return to self will be granted to our nation with the blessing of the glorious Islamic revolution. There is a way to the light… part of this letter is as follows:
“… smallpox, which is so common and deadly in England, is generally a harmless disease here. When people in this country find out that one of the family members is at risk of smallpox, they keep some family members away. They gather together (usually 15 to 16 people), then the oldest woman in the family, while holding a container of anti-smallpox, asks the patient’s willingness to open one of his veins, then with a large needle (the pain caused by making it is not more than making a scratch) and the amount of anti-smallpox substance is injected into the vein as much as the needle can hold. I have yet to know of anyone who has died from the complications of this method. Believe me, I am very pleased with this safe experiment, especially since this method of prevention was used on my dear son who was exposed to smallpox and he was saved. .
Thanks to this sacrifice and patriotism and with all the problems it has, it is hoped that one day we will be able to bring this very useful invention of Muslims to England for use…”
Three years later, in March 1718, this lady returned to England, her son and daughter were the first English people who had complete immunity against smallpox.
Until in 1721, the Royal Society of England’s doctors, with their many visits to Islamic countries and China, realized that the prevalence of this terrible disease in these countries is much lower and its prognosis is much better than what is seen in England.
More importantly, it is written by Mohammad Zakariya Razi, a great philosopher, chemist and physician of the Islamic world and Iran. He wrote in one of his medical books called “Mafid al-Khas” which, thanks to the help of the cultural affairs of Astan Quds, is the only manuscript in the Astan Quds library. We have found that Razavi suggests a treatment for scorpion stings that is similar to today’s antidotes.
Edward Jenner: The first spark of light towards preventive safety was created by Edward Jenner, who was an English general practitioner. He used the popular rumor that people who have close contact with cows and sheep do not get cow pox and made it a reality.
Edward Jenner was the son of an English priest. He was born in May 1749. At the age of 13, he was very interested in nature, and this interest led him to the field of medicine, and he completed the said course in London and returned to his city to serve the patients. With experience and precision, he observed that cattle farmers who suffer from cow pox are immune to human pox, and in this way, he was able to invent one of the most scientific methods of vaccination against small pox in 1798 and save the lives of millions of people with his great thought. Jenner inoculated cowpox pustules into the hands of a girl named Sarah Nelmes and made her immune to human smallpox.
Following this experience, Jenner published a booklet entitled “How Cowpox Protects Humans from Smallpox”. The Jenner method is still one of the best methods for immunization against smallpox. The invention of this village doctor led to the eradication of smallpox in the world.
Louis-Pasteur: One of the famous figures in immunology is Louis Pasteur. By heating the culture of microbes, he reduced their pathogenicity. Also, by injecting the culture of Bacillus anthracis – which was heated to 42 degrees Celsius – to the sheep, it caused the safety of this animal, if the injection of this microbe without heat is highly pathogenic. Later, Pasteur realized that heat-treated cultures of microbes injected into sheep were resistant to anthrax, and this experience led to the discovery of the anthrax vaccine in 1881.
For inoculation, Pasteur used uncultivated or heated microbes, which destroyed the pathogenic effect of microbes, but kept their immune effect.
One of the other honors of Pastor Kashf (rabies vaccine). At the time of Pasteur, the rabies virus had not yet been discovered, but this scientist created a type of immunity by injecting the spinal cord extract of an infected animal into a healthy dog.
On July 6, 1885, a child named Joseph Meister, who was bitten by a rabid dog and infected with rabies, was brought to Pasteur for vaccination. Reluctantly, but due to the insistence of his parents, Pasteur inoculated the child with his invented vaccine. Surprisingly, the child was saved from certain death by injecting the vaccine. A few weeks later, Pasteur reported his observations to the Paris Academy of Sciences, and within a year, 350 cases were vaccinated with the rabies vaccine.
Pasteur’s method was soon noticed in all of Europe and then in the whole world, and this interesting innovation led to the establishment of the “Pasteur Institute” in Paris and other parts of the world, which is still engaged in research years after the death of this wise scholar of medicine and immunology. They are in infectious diseases and immunology.
Joseph Master was the first person who was saved from death by the rabies vaccine, out of respect and gratitude to Pasteur, he was the gatekeeper of the Pasteur Institute in Paris until 1940, but after the occupation of Paris by the Germans, Pasteur’s manuscripts fell into the hands of the Germans, and this loyal person Frustrated, he committed suicide.
Elie-Metchnikoff: Born in Russia in 1845, his education was in zoology. This Russian zoologist realized for the first time that the body’s immunity is carried out by special cells in the blood circulation. Cellular immunity is one of the discoveries of this scientist.
When he was teaching in one of the German universities as a docent, Mechinkov got married in 1868 due to passionate love, but it didn’t take long for his beloved wife to be taken away from him due to an illness, and this scientist fell into depression due to this mental shock. And he tried to commit suicide unsuccessfully with a high dose of morphine. A few years later, when the memory of his young wife still caused a storm of sadness and despair in his body, he committed suicide again by injecting himself with a pathogenic microbe, and this time he became seriously ill, but his fate He saved himself from certain death and chose his second wife and resigned from the university. His second suicide led to the discovery of the amazing phenomenon of phagocytosis or xenophobia, and in 1908 he succeeded in receiving the Nobel Prize. May his memory be honored.
Robert Kock (1843-1910): The famous medical figure was the first to discover delayed hypersensitivity. Koch made the most of Ehrlich’s abilities in body defense. In 1889, Koch’s student Pfeiffer observed cross-immunity between two similar microbes in guinea pigs.
Serological precipitation on jelly is one of the discoveries of Swedish scientist Ouchterlony in 1948. He invented agglutination by means of Widal antiserum.
The Belgian doctor Bordet was the first to realize the existence of alexin, which was later renamed to complement by Ehrlich, and his paper is of particular importance in this regard, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1919. The immunofluorescence method was invented by Coons in 1942.
In 1945, Coombs, from Cambridge, England, succeeded in performing an anti-globulin test, which today is known as the Coombs test, which is used to determine incomplete antibodies.
Emil Von Behring (1845-1917) :- Behring was born in a poor family. He was not able to continue his studies in the medical school and had to choose theology at the Free University of Berlin, but later he managed to enter the German Army Medical School in Berlin and worked as a doctor in the army for many years until he was transferred to Robert Koch’s laboratory was established in Berlin and then he worked with Koch at the Institute of Infectious Diseases. At that time, deaths due to diphtheria and tetanus were common and Behring managed to discover antitoxin for the first time in 1890. He received the Nobel Prize in 1901 for this discovery. He is the founder of the huge Behring factory in Germany, which manufactures biological products. In 1903, Behring started working with the famous English scientist named Wright. Wright had a great scientific personality. First, he was employed in the field of literature at Trinity College Dublin (South Ireland) and therefore he was a capable orator.
Wright succeeded in discovering the Opsonin phenomenon in leukocytes at St. Maryland Hospital. His valuable works on typhoid disease are still of great scientific value. Wright’s test to diagnose typhoid is one of his inventions. It should be remembered that Alexander Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin, was a student of Wright and Behring at St. Mary’s Hospital.
Paul-Ehrlich: He is one of the famous figures of immunology. His favorite field was histology. His first valuable work is the discovery of Mast-cell immunology. One of his personality traits is his strong interest in smoking and writing materials and his discipline in the laboratory. After recovering from tuberculosis, he was interested in drug therapy, but his interest in immunology won him the Nobel Prize in 1908. He realized for the first time that immunity can be transferred from mother to fetus. His concern about antibodies is still of particular importance. Ehrlich was the first to use the term “horror autotoxicus” for the phenomenon of autoimmunity. Using the word complement instead of Alexin is one of his other honors.
Karl Landsteiner Karl-Landsteiner (1868-1943): German doctor who immigrated to America and gave up medicine and turned to science. He made valuable services in the field of immunology, especially immunobiochemistry. Most of his studies were on haptens. Landsteiner was the first to realize that small molecular weight chemicals, if combined with another chemical, would elicit a good immune response after injection into an animal. He worked on haptens for 25 years and 95 of the 167 articles published by this scientist are related to haptens.
But his brilliant and remarkable work is the discovery of the ABO blood group in 1901, which was able to create an interesting surprise in the field of head and immunology and succeeded in receiving the Nobel Prize. At the same time as Landsteiner, Heidelberger and his colleagues succeeded in discovering the sedimentation test, and then his student Kabat invented the agglutination reaction.
Portier and Richet (1850-1935) who identified the phenomenon of anaphylaxis and won the Nobel Prize in 1913 should be mentioned among the famous and historical figures of immunology.