Can we alter the course of allergic disease?

Abstract

In the period between 1870 and 2020, several different allergic diseases have emerged (Fig 1). The role of pollen grains in hay fever was defined by Blackley in 1873; Prausnitz coined the term allergy in 1905; immunotherapy (IT) was introduced by Noon in 1911; asthma became a major disease of childhood between 1960 and 2000. Finally, multiple forms of food allergy erupted between 1980 and 2010.1 Given the multiple different syndromes of allergic disease, it is obvious that there cannot be a simple explanation for their appearance or increase in prevalence at such different times.