The term 'allergy' was coined in 1906 by the Viennese paediatrician Clemens von Pirquet to denote any kind of biological reactivity, including asthma, hay fever, reactions to insect bites and stings, and the immunological effects of vaccines and natural infections. Some influential contemporary specialists thought the new term to be both wrong and unnecessary. Wrong, because the evidence linking the different manifestations of the condition was weak; and unnecessary, because there were other neologisms with much the same meaning: 'hypersensitivity', introduced by Emil von Behring in 1894, and 'anaphylaxis', invented by Charles Richet and Paul Portier in 1902. Von Pirquet won. The linking evidence has turned out to be very strong. And although Nobel Prizes were awarded to Behring (in 1901) and Richet (in 1913) for their immunological researches, their terms, unlike 'allergy', remained scientific and technical.

LRB 22 June 2006 | PDF Download