In 1962, Jim Gowans and colleagues published in Nature a set of elegant experiments that established the basics of adaptive immunity. Exploring the allograft response via thoracic duct lymphocyte drainage (both to obtain pure populations of lymphocytes and to establish immunological unresponsiveness), as well as using histology augmented by autoradiography to detect adoptively transferred cells, Gowans et al. showed that cell-mediated immunity is a function of small lymphocyte recruitment to regional lymphoid tissue, followed by the enlargement, proliferation, export and localization of these lymphocytes to sites of immune rejection. With only 22 references, 4 display items and no supplementary data, this paper highlights the intellectual precision that is characteristic of that distant and less complex time!

Although red blood cells (RBCs) were described in the 17th century by Leeuwenhoek in 1674, more than 160 years passed before better microscopes enabled William Addison (1802–1881) and Gabrielle Andral (1797–1876) to identify the much less prevalent white blood cells (WBCs) (reviewed by Hajdu, 2003). Leeuwenhoek had seen the WBCs using his simple monocular microscopes, but he failed to recognize them as a separate category. Then, using vital dyes for cell and tissue staining, Paul Ehrlich (1854–1915) and others described the basic types of WBCs morphologically, with most being assigned one or more functions through the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

the lymphocyte ... being small and with little cytoplasm, was regarded as “basically boring”

The exception was the lymphocyte, which, being small and with little cytoplasm, was regarded as “basically boring” (reviewed by Gowans, 1996). Some speculated that they were involved in nutrition or were the precursors of haematopoietic cells. Although Astrid Fagraeus (1913–1997) showed in 1948 that plasma cells make immunoglobulins, the link between lymphocytes and plasma cells was not established until 1973 (by Ellis and Gowans).

As George Santayana (1863–1952) observed: “Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it”. Fortunately, the basic rule of science, which is that we must publish our data and conclusions in peer-reviewed formats, means that our history is not lost. The record of Jim Gowans' extraordinary contribution is there for all immunologists to read.