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Book Review: The Foundations of Immunology and their Pertinence to Medicine

We are in the era cursed with overspecialization. Charles Darwin's foundational Origin of Species, published in 1859, was accessible to the broadly educated individual. Starting with this statement, Peter Bretscher in his new book aimed at explaining foundational concepts of immunology to a broad public. His standpoint is that foundational ideas usually can be simply expressed. This book describes first how foundational concepts of immunology have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. The importance of self–non‐self‐discrimination by the immune system is acknowledged, and models for immunological tolerance are compared. A main focus concerns the understanding of immune class regulation. According to Bretscher's Threshold Hypothesis, a low antigen dose or low degree of foreignness results in Th1 immunity whereas a high antigen dose or high degree of foreignness induces Th2 responses. A novel vaccination strategy is proposed with an ultra‐low number of live, attenuated organisms. It is described in details how this approach may potentially be used to prevent or treat HIV infection, tuberculosis and cancer. The book is very well written in a clear, simple and stimulating style which makes it accessible not only to immunologists but also non‐specialists, teachers, medical students and clinicians. It will convince many that the immune system is not too complex to be understood. By Peter Bretscher. FriesenPress, 2016. 200 pp. ISBN: 978‐1‐4602‐9656‐1.