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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Bacteria and Complement — A Historical Review

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In the second half of the nineteenth century, shortly after it became clear from the work of Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) and Robert Koch (1843–1910) that microorganisms cause infectious diseases, extensive studies were untertaken to elucidate the mechanisms of protection from and resistance to infections. This early history of the investigation of immunity is characterized by the dispute between two opposing schools, the protagonists of the “cellular” and the “humoral” theories. Eli Metchnikoff (1845–1919) was the first to recognize the general significance of the phenomenon of phagocytosis in animal tissues. In 1883, he published his first papers in the presentation of the theory of phagocytosis. He “sought especially to develop the idea that the intracellular digestion of microcellular organisms and of many invertebrates had been hereditarily transmitted to the higher animals and retained in them by the ameboid cells of mesodermic origin. These cells, being capable of ingesting and digesting all kinds of histological elements, may apply the same power to the destruction of microorganisms.” Despite initial struggle, the phagocytes were soon accepted as the principal, if not the only, defenses of the body against bacterial invasion.