IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000671058

Germs, Hosts, and the Origin of Frank Macfarlane Burnet's Concept of “Self” and “Tolerance,” 1936--1949 (2006)

Park, Hyung Wook (Author)

Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences
Volume: 61
Pages: 492--534

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Disease and diseases Microbiology Medicine 20th century, early 20th century Burnet, Frank Macfarlane

In the early twentieth century, the living organism's ability to distinguish its "self" from foreign entities such as bacteria, viruses, transplanted tissue, or transfused blood was a major problem in medical science. This article discusses how the Australian immunologist Frank Macfarlane Burnet arrived at a satisfactory explanation of this problem through his 1949 theory of "self" and "tolerance." Burnet's theoretical work began from his study of diverse factors affecting the conditions of the host and the germ for the occurrence of infectious diseases. Among them, the host's age came to receive his attention as a crucial factor. This understanding was facilitated by his acceptance of cytoplasm inheritance theories, which emphasized the importance of the embryonic host's changing conditions according to its age. Based on this idea, he claimed in 1949 that the "self" of the organism was defined during its embryogenesis. Peter B. Medawar and his colleagues' demonstration of Burnet's claim became the basis for awarding Burnet and Medawar the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1960. While previous histories have focused on Burnet's "inductive reasoning" or "ecological perspective" to explain his conception of the theory of "self" and "tolerance," this article finds the origin of his ideas within an important line of modern medical research engendered through the development of germ theories---the studies of the host body and its relationship with parasites.

...More

Description On the Australian immunologist F. M. Burnet's understanding of how organisms can distinguish themselves from foreign entities.

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000671058/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Sankaran, Neeraja; (2008)
Stepping-Stones to One-Step Growth: Frank Macfarlane Burnet's Role in Elucidating the Viral Nature of the Bacteriophages (/isis/citation/CBB000932000/)

Article Sankaran, Neeraja; (2010)
The Bacteriophage, Its Role in Immunology: How Macfarlane Burnet's Phage Research Shaped His Scientific Style (/isis/citation/CBB001023975/)

Article Chastel, Claude; (2006)
Egypte moderne et histoire de la microbiologie: de l'expédition de Bonaparte à nos jours (/isis/citation/CBB000931794/)

Article Sankaran, Neeraja; (2010)
Mutant Bacteriophages, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and the Changing Nature of “Genespeak” in the 1930s (/isis/citation/CBB001022381/)

Book Sankaran, Neeraja; (2008)
Frank Macfarlane Burnet and the Nature of the Bacteriophages, 1924--1937 (/isis/citation/CBB001021583/)

Article Park, Hyung Wook; (2010)
“The Shape of the Human Being as a Function of Time”: Time, Transplantation, and Tolerance in Peter Brian Medawar's Research, 1937--1956 (/isis/citation/CBB001210112/)

Article Anderson, Warwick; (2014)
An “Accidental Immunologist”: An Interview with Professor Sir Gustav Nossal (/isis/citation/CBB001421886/)

Article Lozano, Sonia; (2008)
Importation et destin de la première théorie des germes au Mexique: développement des premières recherches sur la fièvre jaune dans les années 1880 (/isis/citation/CBB000932882/)

Article Gradmann, Christoph; (2001)
Isolation, Contamination, and Pure Culture: Monomorphism and Polymorphism of Pathogenic Micro-Organisms as Research Problem 1860-1880 (/isis/citation/CBB000101052/)

Article Jones, Susan D.; Teigen, Philip M.; (2008)
Anthrax in Transit: Practical Experience and Intellectual Exchange (/isis/citation/CBB000850412/)

Chapter Benchimol, Jaime Larry; (2004)
Febre Amarela e a Instituição da Microbiologia no Brasil (/isis/citation/CBB000831327/)

Article Levina, Elena S.; (2010)
The First Virologists and the Medical Virology in the USSR, 1930s (/isis/citation/CBB001421106/)

Article Marcella Tamburello; Giovanni Villone; (2017)
Vincenzo Tiberio: la prima antibiotico-terapia sperimentale in vivo (/isis/citation/CBB360249828/)

Article Maria Carla Garbarino; (2017)
Adelchi Negri e la diagnosi della rabbia (/isis/citation/CBB167134313/)

Article Flavio D'Abramo; Sybille Neumeyer; (2020)
A Historical and Political Epistemology of Microbes (/isis/citation/CBB158989443/)

Book Johach, Eva; (2008)
Krebszelle und Zellenstaat: Zur medizinischen und politischen Metaphorik in Rudolf Virchows Zellularpathologie (/isis/citation/CBB000953296/)

Book Dolman, Claude E.; Wolfe, Richard J.; (2003)
Theobald Smith, Microbiologist: Suppressing the Diseases of Animals and Man (/isis/citation/CBB000330967/)

Thesis Sangodeyi, Funke Iyabo; (2014)
The Making of the Microbial Body, 1900s-2012 (/isis/citation/CBB001567653/)

Article Verhave, Jan Peter; (2010)
Clifford Dobell and the Making of Paul de Kruif's Microbe Hunters (/isis/citation/CBB001230200/)

Article Mauro Capocci; (2017)
Regimen Strikes Back. Diagnosis, Genes and the Patient (/isis/citation/CBB699749755/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}