Diseases Due to Immunologic Reactions in the Lungs

Abstract

THE unique relations that exist in the respiratory tract, and particularly in the lungs, between man's internal and external environments have long been recognized as being of importance in disease. Discovery of anaphylaxis and allergy around the turn of this century soon led to recognition that immunologic events were involved in the pulmonary manifestations of anaphylactic shock, asthma and serum sickness. Hypersensitivity mechanisms were then suspected in a number of other pulmonary disorders. As recently as 1966, in a review of the various hypersensitivity reactions in the lungs, Liebow and Carrington¹ found it necessary to use a largely descriptive approach . . .