autoimmunityn.
/ˌɔːtəʊᵻˈmjuːnᵻti/, U.S. /ˌɔdoʊəˈmjunədi/, /ˌɑdoʊəˈmjunədi/ Medicine.
1. Immunity arising naturally after exposure to a pathogen or foreign substance within the body. Now rare or disused.
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the world > life > biology > biological processes > immunogenesis > [noun] > immune response > immunity
active immunity1897
autoimmunity1901
adaptive immunity1925
1901 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 5 Oct. 951/2 Our patients are frequently reduced..by their efforts to establish a sort of auto-immunity while harbouring collections of pus—a valuable contribution to their defences against operative sepsis, I believe, but not making for an increase of their shock-resisting powers.
1904 Dietetic & Hygienic Gaz. 20 476/2 It must, however, be borne in mind that the normal organism is virtually invulnerable to all forms of infection, and that the cultivation of auto-immunity is the goal to be constantly aimed at.
1915 Med. Cent. 22 205/1 Ample time should be given for the acute symptoms to subside and for the system to acquire a considerable auto-immunity to the infecting toxines.
2. The occurrence or development of an immune response against a normal constituent of the body; the condition resulting from this.
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1957 Lancet 25 May 1075/2 Again the antibodies collected in the colloid of the few remaining active acini, providing convincing evidence of auto immunity caught in the act.
1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 15 July 133/1 Thirty years ago, obscure maladies were often ascribed to either allergy or a septic focus; now they are either due to autoimmunity or a virus.
1986 New Eng. Jrnl. Med. 22 May 1362/2 There are drugs and infectious agents that trigger the development of autoimmunity.
2005 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Mar. 59/2 Self-attack—otherwise known as autoimmunity—is thought to underpin many diseases, including type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and, possibly, psoriasis.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2011; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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n.1901