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Immune System
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 The
Immune System Your Magic Doctor : A Guide to the Immune System for
the Curious of All Ages by Helen Garvy, Dan
Bessie (Illustrator)
A guide to the immune system for the curious of
all ages. Illustrated with cartoon characters, the book
demystifies the workings of the various parts of the immune
system. It explains how the immune system keeps you healthy and
how it helps heal you when you get sick. Includes information on
allergies, AIDS, and vaccines.
"This is an informative, clear presentation
that is easy to recommend. Enjoyable and entertaining, it presents
basic facts about the immune system and how it works. In
well-organized sections, the reader is taken step by step through
an immune response. The players are depicted in humorous cartoon
form." -- Science Books & Films
On Science Books & Films list of Best
Children's Science Books (1992).
(From the introduction) Your body is truly
amazing and has its very own build-in 'magic doctor' -- the immune
system -- that helps keep you well and helps heal you when you get
sick. This book will introduce you to the immune system and help
you understand such things as fever, pus, vaccines, allergies,
colds, auto-immune diseases, cancer, and AIDS -- and, most
importantly, how to stay healthy. -- Excerpted from The Immune
System Your Magic Doctor : A Guide to the Immune System for the
Curious of All Ages by Helen Garvy and Dan Bessie. Copyright
© 1992. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
About the Author
Helen Garvy (Harvard '64) is a writer, filmmaker, and teacher who
became fascinated with the immune system. This book is based on an
award-winning film of the same title.
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This information is a collaboration of the
National Cancer Institute
and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service
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by Marshall Brain
Excerpt:
Inside your body there is an amazing protection
mechanism called the immune system. It is designed to defend you
against millions of bacteria, microbes, viruses, toxins and
parasites that would love to invade your body. To understand the
power of the immune system, all that you have have to do is look
at what happens to anything once it dies. That sounds gross, but
it does show you something very important about your immune
system. When something dies its immune system (along with
everything else) shuts down. In a matter of hours the body is
invaded by all sorts of bacteria, microbes, parasites... None of
these things are able to get in when your immune system is
working, but the moment your immune system stops the door is wide
open. Once you die it only takes a few weeks for these organisms
to completely dismantle your body and carry it away, until all
that's left is a skeleton. Obviously your immune system is doing
something amazing to keep all of that dismantling from happening
when you are alive!
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By W. Jean Dodds, DVM
Excerpt:
This article discusses the essential role of the
immune system in maintaining the body's overall general health and
resistance to disease. The focus will be on environmental factors
or events which may cause or trigger immune dysfunction leading to
either immune deficiency or immune stimulation (reactive or
autoimmunity). Related to these events is the development of
cancer which is a disruption of cell growth control...
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By Dr K. West
The immune system operates throughout the body.
There are, however, certain sites where the cells of the immune
system are organised into specific structures. These are
classified as central lymphoid tissue (bone marrow, thymus) and
peripheral lymphoid tissue (lymph nodes, spleen, mucosa-associated
lymphoid tissue)...
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From the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Excerpt:
The immune system is a complex of organs--highly
specialized cells and even a circulatory system separate from
blood vessels--all of which work together to clear infection from
the body.
The organs of the immune system, positioned
throughout the body, are called lymphoid organs. The word
"lymph" in Greek means a pure, clear stream--an
appropriate description considering its appearance and purpose...
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By John C. Brown
Excerpt:
The virus responsible for the condition known as
AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome), is named HIV (Human
Immunodeficiency Virus). AIDS is the condition whereby the body's
specific defense system against all infectious agents no longer
functions properly. There is a focused loss over time of immune
cell function which allows intrusion by several different
infectious agents, the result of which is loss of the ability of
the body to fight infection and the subsequent acquisition of
diseases such as pneumonia. We will examine the virus itself, the
immune system, the specific effect(s) of HIV on the immune system,
the research efforts presently being made to investigate this
disease, and finally, how one can try to prevent acquiring HIV...
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This site from the U.S.
National Library of Medicine hosts many topics including:
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Complete study of this system with an
introduction, the fluid systems, innate immunity, etc.
From the Introduction:
The
human immune system is a truly amazing constellation of responses
to attacks from outside the body. It has many facets, a number of
which can change to optimize the response to these unwanted
intrusions. The system is remarkably effective, most of the time.
This note will give you a brief outline of some of the processes
involved...
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From
the National Center for
Biotechnology Information
Excerpt:
is a complex and highly developed system, yet
its mission is simple: to seek and kill invaders. If a person is
born with a severely defective immune system, death from infection
by a virus, bacterium, fungus or parasite will occur. In severe
combined immunodeficiency, lack of an enzyme means that toxic
waste builds up inside immune system cells, killing them and thus
devastating the immune system...
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By Henry Dreher, thebody.com
Excerpt from The
Immune Power Personality by Henry Dreher:
As a guide to the research detailed in this
book, I offer a primer on the basic functions of our immune
system--its organs, cells, cell products, and messenger molecules.
This system is a fluid network designed to protect us from agents
of disease, and to heal wounds delivered by injury or invasion.
One immunologist called it a "roving bag of cells" that
patrols our bodies on missions of resistance and restoration.
In order to do its job properly, our immune
system must be exquisitely sensitive in detecting the surface
features of other cells and substances. It must distinguish the
"fingerprints" of intruders from those of family
members--our own cells and molecules. That is why scientist Ted
Melnechuk once remarked that "The immune system is a sensory
organ for molecular touch." But our defense network is called
upon to be as aggressive as it must be sensitive. Its task is to
indentify and then eliminate foreign agents--be they bacteria,
viruses, fungi, toxic chemicals, or cancer cells--with precision
and dispatch.
Except for the nervous system, the immune system
is the most complex biological system we have. It consists of
master glands, principally the thymus; various sites that harbor
immune cells; and different classes of "soldier" cells,
which carry out specialized functions--including cells that
prompt, cells that alert, cells that facilitate, cells that
activate, cells that surround, cells that kill, even cells that
clean up. Many immune cells also synthesize and secrete special
molecules that act as messengers, regulators, or helpers in the
process of defending against invaders...
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