Anaphylaxis
/ˌænəfɪˈlæksɪs/noun
A violent whole-body allergic reaction that can close the airway within minutes.
The Greek roots
Literally: “the reverse of protection”
The story of the word
Charles Richet and Paul Portier were testing toxins from sea creatures on dogs, work that began aboard Prince Albert of Monaco's yacht, when they found that a second small dose killed animals which had survived a large first one. They named it in 1902 by taking φύλαξις, protection, out of prophylaxis and reversing it, so the word means something like un-protection. Richet was given the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1913. The mechanism, an immune system primed to overreact to something harmless, is why a peanut can be lethal on the second meeting and not the first.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → French scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1902
Same family
In a sentence
She carries two adrenaline pens because anaphylaxis can rebound an hour later.
The wasp sting brought on anaphylaxis in under four minutes.