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concepts
Nature 423, 20 (1 May 2003) | doi:10.1038/423020a
Innate immunity: The unsung heroes
Peter Parham1
Immunology ostensibly began with ancient Greek physicians, who marvelled at their observation that patients who had survived a bout of plague were resistant to the disease when it came around again. From this germ was born the idea of vaccination — a small controlled infection, like a sort of immunological rehearsal, designed to confer future resistance to full-blown infection while causing only mere discomfort, rather than disease.
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