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History of immunology
CELLULAR
IMMUNOLOGY
42, 1-2 (1979)
NOTICE History
of Immunology
This year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of immunology as a scientific discipline. In the autumn of 1879, following the chance observation that cultures of chicken cholera organisms had become attenuated over the summer vacation, Louis Pasteur and his assistants Chamberland and Roux performed the first set of rigorous and well-controlled experiments on immunity (l), and a new science was born. The decades that followed were exciting ones, dominated by such other giants as Koch, Metchnikoff, Ehrlich, von Behring, Bordet, Richet, and the young Landsteiner and influenced by the discoveries of antibody, complement, serodiagnosis, anaphylaxis, and numerous other phenomena and techniques. Even those interested in the rich scientific and cultural history of our field tend to lose sight of the forces that motivated the earlier work, of the contemporary interpretations and misinterpretations that were made, and of the epic disputes that raged in the literature and influenced the development of the field. Worse, those who teach immunology find that many in the younger generation know little about this rich heritage and appear to feel that the entire history of our discipline is contained within the past 5 years’ volumes of Cellular Immunology, The Journal of Immunology, Immunology, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and a few others. Even when we quote from the older work, we are often guilty of neglecting the older context and of reinterpreting events and relationships in the light of the present dogma or current paradigm, as pointed out by Thomas Kuhn in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (2). In addition, an understanding of the history of science tends to correct the over-idealized notion of the inherent logic and inexorable direction imposed by the “Scientific Method.” As Sir Peter Medawar claimed in his Jayne Lectures before the American Philosophical Society, “Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. . . . In real life, discovery and justification are almost always different processes. . . . Science in its forward motion is not logically propelled. . . . The process by which we come to formulate a hypothesis is not illogical, but nonlogical, i.e., outside logic” (3). It is for these reasons that Cellular Immunology has decided to open its pages to occasional scholarly contributions on the history of immunology. We invite immunologists with an interest in history as well as historians with an interest in immunology to submit manuscripts for consideration. These, to be prepared in the standard Journal style, will be subjected to rigorous critical review for both scientific as well as historical merit. Further inquiries about this new section
000%8749/79/010001-02$02.00/O Copyright 0 1979 by Academic Press, Inc. AI1 rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
2
NOTICE
may be made to Dr. Arthur M. Silverstein, The Wilmer Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland 21205. REFERENCES 1. Pasteur, L., Chamberland, C., and Roux, E., C. R. Acad. Sci. 90, 239, 952, 1880. 2. Kuhn, T. S., “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 2nd ed. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. 3. Medawar, P. B., “Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought.” American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1969.
IMMUNOLOGY
42, 1-2 (1979)
NOTICE History
of Immunology
This year marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the founding of immunology as a scientific discipline. In the autumn of 1879, following the chance observation that cultures of chicken cholera organisms had become attenuated over the summer vacation, Louis Pasteur and his assistants Chamberland and Roux performed the first set of rigorous and well-controlled experiments on immunity (l), and a new science was born. The decades that followed were exciting ones, dominated by such other giants as Koch, Metchnikoff, Ehrlich, von Behring, Bordet, Richet, and the young Landsteiner and influenced by the discoveries of antibody, complement, serodiagnosis, anaphylaxis, and numerous other phenomena and techniques. Even those interested in the rich scientific and cultural history of our field tend to lose sight of the forces that motivated the earlier work, of the contemporary interpretations and misinterpretations that were made, and of the epic disputes that raged in the literature and influenced the development of the field. Worse, those who teach immunology find that many in the younger generation know little about this rich heritage and appear to feel that the entire history of our discipline is contained within the past 5 years’ volumes of Cellular Immunology, The Journal of Immunology, Immunology, the Journal of Experimental Medicine, and a few others. Even when we quote from the older work, we are often guilty of neglecting the older context and of reinterpreting events and relationships in the light of the present dogma or current paradigm, as pointed out by Thomas Kuhn in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” (2). In addition, an understanding of the history of science tends to correct the over-idealized notion of the inherent logic and inexorable direction imposed by the “Scientific Method.” As Sir Peter Medawar claimed in his Jayne Lectures before the American Philosophical Society, “Deductivism in mathematical literature and inductivism in scientific papers are simply the postures we choose to be seen in when the curtain goes up and the public sees us. . . . In real life, discovery and justification are almost always different processes. . . . Science in its forward motion is not logically propelled. . . . The process by which we come to formulate a hypothesis is not illogical, but nonlogical, i.e., outside logic” (3). It is for these reasons that Cellular Immunology has decided to open its pages to occasional scholarly contributions on the history of immunology. We invite immunologists with an interest in history as well as historians with an interest in immunology to submit manuscripts for consideration. These, to be prepared in the standard Journal style, will be subjected to rigorous critical review for both scientific as well as historical merit. Further inquiries about this new section
000%8749/79/010001-02$02.00/O Copyright 0 1979 by Academic Press, Inc. AI1 rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
2
NOTICE
may be made to Dr. Arthur M. Silverstein, The Wilmer Institute, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland 21205. REFERENCES 1. Pasteur, L., Chamberland, C., and Roux, E., C. R. Acad. Sci. 90, 239, 952, 1880. 2. Kuhn, T. S., “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,” 2nd ed. Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970. 3. Medawar, P. B., “Induction and Intuition in Scientific Thought.” American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1969.