Infection and Immunity

The Black Death which decimated Europe at the end of the Middle Ages challenged the ancient concepts of epidemics based on miasmas or astrological phenomena. The germ theory of disease, first enunciated by Fracastorius, had to await the technical development of the microscope and the recognition of specific features of individual infectious diseases before it became established.

The idea that specific immunity followed recovery from a disease was brought to Europe from Arabic sources by Lady Wortley Montague, a lady-in-waiting to Queen Anne and wife of the British ambassador to Constantinople. The production of antibodies and nature of immune cells was not understood until the twentieth century.