HLSC 1F90 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Microorganism, Neutrophil, Gastrointestinal Tract
27 Mar 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Physiological mechanisms that humans and other animals use to defend their bodies from invasion by other organisms (but without harming themselves). A disease does not affect you or you are untouched by it. They reproduce and evolve much more rapidly than their human hosts. Immune system - cells dedicated to the defense of the human body. negative outcomes of the absence of a working immune system : Minor infections can take hold and prove fatal. Children born without a functional immune system die in early childhood from the effects of common infections. The immune system takes time to build up its strongest response to an invading microorganism, time during which the invader can multiply and cause disease. To provide immunity, the immune system but first battle with the microorganism. When populations face a new infection, the outcome is catastrophic. The indigenous americans were killed in large numbers by the european diseases after 1492.
