Autoimmune Diseases
The classic definition of autoimmune disease states that it is a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks healthy cells. It happens when your natural defense system can’t tell the difference between your cells and foreign cells. For thousands of years, our bodies have reacted to foreign substances and learned to better deal with future infections. This has been documented for years, from the time of the Athens plague to 1650. Many of these diseases were caused by viruses or bacterial infections. Two discoveries had been made in the last part of the 19th century. First are the phagocytic cells, which engulf and eat invading pathogens. The second was antibodies that neutralize microbial antigens (which neutralize the particles so they are no longer infectious and cannot cause disease). It was reported that Paul R. Ehrlich was the first to define autoimmune disease as an immune system reaction aimed at...
