In 1879 Paul Ehrlich first described the mast cell as a tissue fixed
cell contain- ing many granules which, when stained with basic dyes,
such as toluidine blue, changed the colour spectrum of the dye in a
process called meta- chromasia. Since this early description,
pathologists, physicians and pharmacologists have been fascinated by
this cell on account of its central involvement in human allergic
diseases. Approximately four decades after Ehrlich's first description
of the mast cell, Prausnitz and Kiistner reported their pioneer
experiment, demonstrating that the immediate skin wheal response to
allergen could be passively transferred with serum. They named the
antigen-specific serum factor reagin. A further four and one half
decades had to pass before the connection between the mast cell and
reagin could be made with the identification of reagin as an
immunoglobulin E by Johansson and Ishizaka and its unique property to
bind with high affinity to specific receptors on mast cells and
basophils. Meanwhile in the 1920s Coca published a series of papers in
which he described the clinical features of acute allergic responses and
first used the term atopy. This, together with the fundamental
pharmacological studies of Sir Henry Dale in identifying histamine as
one mediator of the acute ana- phylactic reaction, provided the second
approach which eventually linked the mast cell to allergic tissue
reactions. Indeed, it was Best, working in Dale's group who first showed
that histamine was a chemical stored in mast cells.