Abstract
It is less than 125 years that the etiologic cause of infectious diseases was described and widely accepted. Since then it has become well known that infections are due to microorganisms, either bacteria, fungi, rickettsia or viruses. Soon after discovery that microorganisms cause disease, early “biological” methods were developed to prevent many infections, i.e, vaccination with killed or attenuated microorganisms given to individuals to induce resistance to infection by specific humoral inhibitors (i.e. antibodies), cellular immunity, or both. Thus vaccines were really the first “biological response modifiers” (BRM). However, in the middle portion of this century antibiotics superseded many vaccine procedures to treat infections and became a staple for infectious disease control. It is now well known, however, that certain antibiotics may also affect the host immune response system, especially antibiotics which are antimetabolites and interfere with metabolic or synthetic pathways. Yet antibiotics are not considered biological response modifiers.
Published Version
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