[Critical backward glance at the development of the science of immunity]

Premunition, infection immunity and virus persistence are notions of the theory of immunity, which, on account of their communities lead to the conclusion that the intracellular inclusion of the living agent is the basis of every acquired immunity. The antibodies of the vertebratae have an exclusively sensory function. They are no immune bodies. Acquired immunity is the ability to prevent a repetition of the same disease. But it does not protect from a local infection with the same agent. Local infections arise by the fact that specific antibodies were acquired already before the infection or were preformed in the genome of the host cells and may be called at once. Their germs lead to an inflammation at the entrance. Cyclic infectious diseases with particularly reliable immunity are certain virus diseases, such as measles, poliomyelitis and yellow fever. The viruses increase in the intracellular space may persist there and may later on evoke local recidivations, like the viruses of the herpes group. As a purely sensory substrate antibodies only evoke the inflammatory disease, but they are not carriers of the acquired immunity, but in certain cases only a mediator for these. Only in a prophylactic dosage antibodies may have an effect preventing disease. The gradual change of the contents of the notion of immunity in the course of this century has led the theoretical research to large difficulties, even to contradictions, respectively. Their correction by retroreflection to the original contents of the notion is necessary, in order to create clear fundaments for the future.