Allergic diseases are not new. They have been described in the early medical literature in various cultures like Egypt, China, indigenous America and in the Greco-Roman tradition. The terms 'idiosyncrasy', 'asthma' and 'eczema' are still in use today. The most famous allergic individual of antiquity with the whole triad of atopic diseases and a positive family history of atopy probably was Emperor Octavianus Augustus.
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