RESUMO
The paper focuses on Pasteur's public experimentation of the anthrax vaccine (Pouilly-le-Fort, 1881) as portrayed in the English and French popular press of the time. It is argued that this 'popular' level of representation did not merely provide additional publicity for Pasteur's ideas. Rather, the nature and meaning of the experiment itself and of the related controversy on immunisation were substantially negotiated and shaped within the public arena. The multifold consequences of this framing at the public level are explored. In particular, attention is drawn to the relationships that in such process were established with other issues debated at the same time in the arena, namely homeopathy, vivisection and vaccination.
Assuntos
Antraz/história , Vacinas Bacterianas/história , Jornais como Assunto/história , Animais , Antraz/prevenção & controle , Antraz/veterinária , Inglaterra , França , História do Século XIX , Homeopatia/história , Humanos , Opinião Pública , Vacinação/história , Vivissecção/históriaRESUMO
Many chemical entities, either from natural sources or prepared by synthesis, are known to exert stimulating activities on various functions of the immune system, such as antibody production, resistance to infections, rejection of malignant cells, etc. In this review, the origin, chemical structures and main activities of several immunostimulants are described, with special emphasis on their present or potential medical usefulness. An attempt is made to envisage the future of this type of pharmacological agents, excluding however from the presentation the endogenous modulators of the immune system (cytokines), the production and activities of which are influenced by the immunostimulants themselves.