Word Finder - immunity

definition

The state of being insusceptible to something; notably:

definition

A resistance to a specific thing.

example

Superbugs are bacteria that develop an immunity to antibiotics.

The nature of immunity is not known.

I cannot have anyone else find out about the power of the immunity blood.

Then a certain amount of immunity may be acquired by the systematic use of quinine.

Building immunity by using a vaccine is called immunization.

If my serum worked, then we know her blood will give immunity.

Medical school education is likely to confer lifelong immunity 1.

In September of the same year he was able to announce results which pointed to the means of securing immunity from the dreaded plague.

But in any case, the immunity easily carried the development of private jurisdiction through these stages.

Such cases suggest that we should be more correct in regarding, not albinism as correlated with constitutional defects, but rather pigmentation as correlated with powers of immunity or increased resistance against certain injurious processes.

T-cell immunity is known to be important in maintaining VZV in a latent state.

In addition to the franchise, immunity from corporal punishment (even in the field) was promised the Latins.

Alaric was an Arian Christian who trusted to the sanctity of Easter for immunity from attack, and the enemies of Stilicho reproached him for having gained his victory by taking an unfair advantage of the great Christian festival.

In the exercise of their office the members of both delegations are irresponsible, enjoying constitutional immunity.

In January 1661 a land commission was appointed to investigate the financial and economical conditions of the kingdoms; the fiefs were transformed into counties; the nobles were deprived of their immunity from taxation; and in July 1662 the Norwegian towns received special privileges, including the monopoly of the lucrative timber trade.

The Israelites are represented as living among the Egyptians, and enjoy no immunity from the plagues, except that of darkness.

As a reward he obtained from Spain and Naples the recognition of ecclesiastical immunity.

Early in his term he carried out a policy he had urged upon the government when minister to France and when vice-president, by dispatching naval forces to coerce Tripoli into a decent respect for the trade of his country - the first in Christendom to gain honourable immunity from tribute or piracy in the Mediterranean.

The people have by no means that immunity from disease which the bright, dry character of the climate and the fine physical aspect of a large proportion of them might lead us to expect.

To this fact it owes its immunity from the forest fires which wreak frightful havoc among the surrounding forests.

The rites, we may suppose, have become modified and more orthodox, but none the less they are a valuable testimony to the persistence of the cult among people who still claim power over serpents and immunity from their bite, and who live hard by the home of the ancient tribe which ascribed its origin to the son of Circe."

Similarly, the comparative immunity of Europeans in the East may be explained by their different conditions of life.

Klein also prepares a new prophylactic from the dried organs of a guinea-pig, and one of the most interesting experiments is that of Strong (Archiv far Schiff sand tropische Hygiene, April, 1906), who uses for producing immunity in man a living virulent culture of the bacillus pestis.

So far as adult life is concerned this superior vitality is no doubt attributable to comparative immunity from the risks and hardships to which men are exposed, as, also, to the weaker inclination of women towards intemperance of different kinds.

And even the more moderate believers in the pope's infallibility maintained that it was merely negative, a heaven-sent immunity against falling into error.

The emperor protested that only the Greeks were fit to hear him, and rewarded them when he left by the bestowal of immunity from the land tax on the whole province, and by the gift of the Roman franchise; he also planned and actually commenced the cutting of a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth.

On the fall of Orlando he succeeded him as premier, but his administration was a weak one, the Socialists and Communists being allowed to commit innumerable acts of criminal violence with absolute immunity.

But the Dacians were really left independent, as is shown by the fact that Domitian agreed to purchase immunity from further Dacian inroads by the payment of an annual tribute.

The members have immunity from prosecution except with the knowledge of the national council.

Omar II., however, extended to non-Arabic Moslems immunity from all taxes except the zakat (poor-rate), with the result that a large number of Persians, who still smarted under their defeat, under Mokhtar, embraced Islam and drifted into the towns to form a nucleus of sedition under the Shiite preachers.

They do not appear, however, to maintain the same degree of immunity over a long period of years, but to become more and more open to the attack as the variety becomes older; nor do they always exhibit the same degree of immunity in different localities.

In other words, animals vaccinated with the cultivated bacillus showed immunity from disease when reinoculated with the deadly wild form.

The questions as to the causes and nature of the changes in the bacillus and in the host, as to the extent of immunity enjoyed by the latter, &c., are of the greatest interest and importance.

Immunity against diseases caused by bacteria has been the subject of systematic research from 1880 onwards.

The facts with regard to passive immunity were thus established and were put to practical application by the introduction of diphtheria antitoxin as a therapeutic agent in 1894.

It was formerly supposed that the injection of attenuated cultures or dead organisms-vaccines in the widest sensewas only of service in producing immunity as a preventive measure against the corresponding organism, but the work of Sir Almroth Wright has shown that the use of such vaccines may be of service even after infection has occurred, especially when the resulting disease is localized.

The methods of producing immunity are dealt with below.

The circumstances which alter the virulence of bacteria will be referred to again in connexion with immunity, but it may be stated here that, as a general rule, the virulence of an organism towards an animal is increased by sojourn in the tissues of that animal.

By immunity is meant non-susceptibility to a given disease, or to experimental inoculation with a given bacterium or toxin.

That an animal possesses natural immunity can only be shown on exposing it to such conditions, this being usually most satisfactorily done in direct experiment.

Further, there are various degrees of immunity, and in this connexion conditions of local or general diminished vitality play an important part in increasing the susceptibility.

Animals naturally susceptible may acquire immunity, on the one hand by successfully passing through an attack of the disease, or, on the other hand, by various methods of inoculation.

Two chief varieties of artificial immunity are now generally recognized, differing chiefly according to the mode of production.

In the first - active immunity - a reaction or series of reactions is produced in the body of the animal, usually by injections of bacteria or their products.

The second - passive immunity - is produced by the transference of a quantity of the serum of an animal actively immunized to a fresh animal; the term is applied because there is brought into play no active change in the tissues of the second animal.

The methods of active immunity have been practically applied in preventive inoculation against disease; those of passive immunity have given us serum therapeutics.

The key to the artificial establishment of active immunity is given by the fact long established that recovery from an attack of certain infective diseases is accompanied by protection for varying periods of time against a subsequent attack.

Immunity, however, probably results from certain substances introduced into the system during the disease rather than from the disease itself; for by properly adjusted doses of the poison (in the widest sense), immunity may result without any symptoms of the disease occurring.

Of the chief methods used in producing active immunity the first is by inoculation with bacteria whose virulence has been diminished, i.e.

The immunity may be made to reach a very high degree by ultimately using cultures of intensified virulence, this " supervirulent " character being usually attained by the method of passage already explained.

A second method is by injection of the bacterium in the dead condition, whereby immunity against the living organism may be produced.