In 1906 he noticed that patients who had previously received injections of horse serum or
smallpox vaccine had quicker, more severe reactions to a second injection. He coined the word allergy (from the Greek allos meaning "other" and ergon meaning "work") to describe this
hypersensitivity reaction.[2]
Soon after, the observation with smallpox led Pirquet to realize that
tuberculin, which
Robert Koch isolated from the
bacteria that cause
tuberculosis in 1890, might lead to a similar type of reaction.
Charles Mantoux expanded upon Pirquet's ideas and the
Mantoux test, in which tuberculin is injected into the skin, became a diagnostic test for tuberculosis in 1907.
In 1909 he declined proposals to take a position at the
Pasteur Institute in Paris and to become a professor at the
Johns Hopkins University. In 1910 he returned to Europe taking positions in
Breslau (now Wrocław) and then Vienna.
Suicide
On 28 February 1929 Clemens von Pirquet and his wife committed suicide with
potassium cyanide.[3]
^Regarding personal names: Freiherr is a former title (translated as Baron). In Germany since 1919, it forms part of family names. The feminine forms are Freifrau and Freiin.
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