Historical Footprints of Food Allergies

Did you know the term "allergy" was invented as recently as the very beginning of the 20th century?

The word "allergy" has its roots in ancient Greek, where ‘allos’ means ‘other’ and ‘ergon’ means ‘reaction’. Hippocrates is often credited with first recognizing that food could be responsible for adverse symptoms and even death in some individuals. Food allergies have been afflicting people for ages. They were described a few centuries after Hippocrates by the ancient poet Lucretius, as: "food for most, poison for some."

The Middle Ages

Much later, in the Middle Ages, King Richard III of England was known to suffer serious attacks of urticaria (hives) after consuming strawberries. He decided to use this to his political advantage. Having problems with a fringe of the English nobility, Richard III had the idea of organizing a banquet and inviting some of his most fervent detractors, including Lord William Hastings. Strawberries were served during this sumptuous meal. As expected, a crisis of urticaria hit Richard III, and he jumped on the occasion to accuse his opponents of treason and attempted assassination by poisoning. The poor Lord Hastings was decapitated on the spot.

Around the year 1216, John Lackland who was the King of England, was a victim of anaphylactic shock after ingesting peaches, which he was allergic to.

20th Century

In 1903, Clemens von Pirquet, an Austrian scientist, reported the idea that the immune system could harm the body it is mean to protect. This was the first discovery of hypersensitivity. Von Pirquet stated that he wanted the term “allergy” to be applied to immunological reactions.

French physiologist Charles Richet and his colleague Portier studied the pathological effects of marine animal toxins in dogs. They discovered an established pattern in the sudden deaths of these dogs and called the reactions “anaphylaxis.”

In 1913, Richet received the Nobel Prize for his work on anaphylaxis. This is when the term “allergy” began to become popularized, and in the 1930s, it was well known as a medical terminology.

Meanwhile, in 1921, Otto Carl Prausnitz, a German physicist and bacteriologist, discovered immunoglobulin E (IgE), the antibody that is strongly present in allergic individuals. Though food allergies have likely been present for a long time, the awareness, diagnosis, and management of food allergies have advanced considerably in recent decades. This has led to better recognition and understanding of this condition.

Source: https://www.fondation-ipsen.org/podcast/history-of-allergies/