1956

Birth of the New Immunology, when Bruce Glick discovered the role of the bursa of Fabricius (in birds), and Robert Good of the thymus (in mice), in immune functioning, leading to abandonment of Ehrlich’s theory of the origin of antibody via specialized type of cell that manufactured antibody. Bursa subsequently linked with antibody-producing cells (B-cells) and thymus with cells that recognized antigens (T-cells) (Desowitz, 82-86; Hall, 169-173). “ . . . among all the chickens whose bursas had been removed, only hatchlings later became immunologically impaired, incapable of making antibodies. . . . Somehow the bursa controlled antibody production, and it exercised this control fairly early in an animal’s life, because the gland typically shriveled and atrophied in chickens in two or three months” (Hall, 168, 169).