Multiple Chemical Sensitivity - History

History

Allergist Theron G. Randolph (1906–1995) was the first to describe "the chemical intolerance phenomenon" in the mid-20th century, calling it "unwitting addiction" and comparing it to drug and alcohol addiction, with the addiction cycle being transparent to the patient as a masked intolerance. When Randolph formulated his views, the term allergy was not connected with immunology, as it has been since the late 1960s. It was then that non-immune-mediated hypersensitivities came to be called "intolerances", "idiopathic" or "idiosyncratic reactions" or "pseudoallergies". Randolph's theory was dismissed from the realm of allergology as the condition is not mediated by the humoral immune system.

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