Robert Anderson Cooke(¤1880- † 1960) was an American immunologist and allergologist. Together with Arthur Fernandez Coca (¤20.3.1875 - † 11. 12.1959), he coined the term"atopy".
In 1916, Cooke and Albert Vandeveer demonstrated the role of heredity in the development of allergies. According to Cooke, 48% of his allergic patients had allergies in their family history. While the trait of allergy is passed on through heredity, parents and children can be allergic to different substances.
In 1918, Cooke proposed "desensitization or hyposensitization" as the mechanism of action for allergen injections, analogous to the tolerance achieved in experimental anaphylaxis in animals. This concept states that injecting an increasing amount of the allergen or antigen slowly neutralizes the antibodies responsible for the allergic reaction.