Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov founded the field of immunology and received the Nobel Prize in 1908 alongside Paul Ehrlich. Mechnikov discovered phagocytosis in the late 1880s while observing starfish larvae, and Ehrlich developed the humoral theory of immunity using mice and poisonous plant extracts.
The earliest written record of immunity dates back to the plague of Athens in 430 BCE. The historian Thucydides observed that individuals who recovered from the disease were able to nurse the sick without contracting the illness a second time.
Macfarlane Burnet formulated the clonal selection theory in the mid-1950s. He was inspired by a suggestion from Niels Jerne and developed a theory explaining how an immune response is triggered based on the distinction between self and nonself.
Maternal antibodies transferred from the placenta can protect the newborn for up to 18 months. The mean level of C3, a key component of the complement cascade, in a newborn is approximately 65% of that found in an adult.
Diseases caused by disorders of the immune system fall into two broad categories: immunodeficiency and autoimmunity. Immunodeficiency occurs when parts of the immune system fail to provide an adequate response, while autoimmunity arises when the immune system attacks its own host's body.
Ecoimmunology is the study of the relationship between the immune system and the environment, exploring host pathogen defenses such as pathogen avoidance and self-medication. Behavioral immunity is a phrase coined by Mark Schaller that refers to psychological pathogen avoidance drivers.