After that read the text aloud, trying to imitate the intonation. A. Allergy(after Greek allos -another, ergon - I act) also called in many American texts “Hypersensitivity” is a collective term designating a group of

B. In clinical language, any adverse immune reaction which is too intensive, or qualitatively unusual, is referred to as "hypersensitivity”, because it incurs pathological sequels. It is necessary to stress that, for practitioners, allergy is a relatively defined term applicable, first of all, to excessive or poorly regulated immune response causing obvious tissue injury not justified by the scale of achieved defensive effect.

C. If an allergic reaction is directed against autoantigens, it is called autoallergy. Abnormal autoallergy is distinct from physiological autoimmunity, as well as normoergic immune response is distinct from hyperergic allergy, although their mechanisms are similar. Moderate autoimmunity is necessary for regulation of cell growth and functions, but excessive autoallergy is able to cause autoimmune diseases. Allergy as an experimental phenomenon was originally developed by French pathophysiologists Ch. Richet[11] and P. Portier[12] (1902) on the yacht of Grimaldi, Prince of Monaco during their sea trip on the Mediterranean. The phenomenon was reproduced as an extraordinarily strong systemic reaction in dogs after repeated injection of sea anemones’ extract into them. Clinical cases of allergy were described long before this research. Ancient Egyptian chroniclers reported that one of the Pharaohs died, after being stung by a bee, with the manifestations resembling what we now call systemic anaphylaxis. F. Magandie[13] (1809) described cases of “idiosyncrasy” towards some substances, to which the majority of patients are indifferent, and explained them by individual specificity of the nervous system.

D. In the beginning of the twentieth century allergy was considered to be a rare anomaly of body constitution. It is witnessed by the very origin of the word “allergy”, coined by the Austrian pediatrician C. von Pirquet[14] (1906) to designate a deviating reactivity. But nowadays, when about 10% of the Earth’s population, according WHO estimates, suffer from some allergic disorders, allergy is no longer regarded as something extraodinary, but rather as a general calamity! Among children the percentage of allergic individuals is greater – up to 20% and even 30%.

E. Allergy is a problem of an organism which is genetically predetermined to respond exceptionally to an antigenic challenge. It is necessary to emphasize that allergy does not only result from the evil character of an allergen itself. But some antigens, for example, the components of ragweed or mites, of worms provoke allergy in especially large contingents of people.

F. It seems that a considerable percentage of individuals, genetically predisposed to allergy, have always existed in human population, while, previously such reactivity was rarely displayed. Now this peculiar reactivity has become more pronounced due to the longer duration of life span and some other reasons.

Such broad manifestation of allergy in the population can be accounted for by the deplorable state of antigenic and haptenic burden of a modern man. First of all, it is the deteriorating ecological environment. For example, in Australia in the mid-1970s the annual consumption of different food additives, alien to human body (preservants, antioxidants, dyes, pollutants, and drugs) reached the level of about 23 kilos per capita! The famous Russian internist academician Ye. M. Tareev[15] once said that the passion to swallow tablets is as characteristic of a modern man, as it was natural for a pre-historical man to hold himself erect.

G. In the good olden times our ancestors lived all their lifes on relatively small territories, accustomed to a constant antigenic environment. Nowadays people travel a lot over great distances, and willingly introduce innovations into their home environment. And even without distant travel, just living day by day somewhere in Peoria, State of Illinois, one has every opportunity to visit the nearest supermarket risking direct contact with all kinds of allergens from all 6 continents and 5 oceans, including the Aerial one. For example, nitrophenols, which are universally spread in the air, water and food, may act as haptens, cross-reacting with some autoantigens (brain proteins, MHC markers and immunoglobulins), causing various manifestations of autoallergy.

Let us dwell no longer on the subject of poor ecology so often blamed by journalists and public activists so that this important cause of growing allergy was not reduced for triviality.

3 Look through the text to find out what topic each paragraph is concerned with.

5Unjumble these jumbled words.