Dr. Mary Hewitt Loveless, a physician and immunologist who was an innovator in the treatment of allergies, died on June 2, 1991 at her home in Westport, Conn. She was 92 years old.
In the 1940's Dr. Loveless was an early leader in venom immunology. She developed an injection to prevent the sometimes fatal allergic reaction of people susceptible to shock from bee and wasp stings.
While other researchers were grinding up entire bees and other stinging insects to develop an immunizing agent, Dr. Loveless dissected the venom sacs from bees and wasps, ground them and injected her patients with the venom. The patients built up a tolerance to the stings and were then stung once a year in the doctor's office to maintain their immunity.
Her methods were questioned by many physicians at first as too dangerous, but in 1979 the Federal Food and Drug Administration approved a venom immunization against bee stings.
Dr. Loveless also discovered blocking antibodies for sufferers of pollen allergies and hay fever.
Dr. Loveless, a 1925 graduate of the Stanford University Medical School, was a physician in San Francisco before becoming a research fellow at the Roosevelt Hospital Allergy Clinic in Manhattan in 1934. Four years later she joined the New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center as associate professor of clinical medicine. She retired in 1964 and continued her private practice in Westport. Continue reading from The New York Times
Loveless on Wasp Venom Allergy and Immunity (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology)
Loveless on Wasp Venom Allergy and Immunity Part 2 (Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology)
Dr. Loveless' Wasps: The Forgotten Story (06880: Where Westport Meets the World)
Mary Hewitt Loveless: Creating a Buzz in Immunology (American Association of Immunologists)
The Evolution of Allergy Immunotherapy (Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology)
