Croonian Lecture.—The biological significance of anaphylaxis

Abstract

Mr. President, Ladies, and Gentlemen,— I am deeply sensible of the honour conferred upon me by the invitation to deliver the Croonian Lecture before this Society. In conveying that invitation the Council did me the further service of indicating a desire that the lecture should deal with “The Biological Significance of Anaphylaxis.” From the wording of the title thus suggested, and from their choice to deal with this subject of one whose own activities have lain outside the conventional limits of immunological study, I gather that the Council’s intention was that the lecture should deal with the interest of the phenomena of anaphylaxis for a wider field of biological enquiry than that to which their investigation primarily belongs. You will not expect or desire that I shall attempt a detailed review of the enormous literature which has grown up, with almost unique luxuriance, round the study of anaphylaxis. I shall deal with the history of the investigation in summary fashion, mentioning few of the participants by name, and giving only such broad outlines as will serve to make clear the nature of the problem to any who may be imperfectly familiar with it. In presenting some of my own experiments in somewhat fuller detail, I am guided by what I believe to be the Council’s desire, that I should put before you a personal and individual view, rather than embark on the hopeless endeavour to compress within the limits of a lecture the material for a judicial appreciation of the evidence.