BODY DEFENSES AND MEDICAL REINFORCEMENTS
You CAN be certain of one thing about your body: it is a
battleground. You have had your share of colds and other commonplace infectious
diseases and perhaps even a few serious ones. Much more often, hundreds upon
hundreds of times, you have been threatened by infection, your body has
responded, and invading organisms have been repulsed- all without your being
aware of even the threat, let alone the encounter.
All of us are constantly
exposed to microorganisms in the air, soil, and water. Some are harmless; many
are potentially dangerous. And the body's defenses are so organized that it is
usual for a quick counterattack to be mustered against invading organisms-quick
and effective enough to prevent infection.
It is only when invading organisms are too numerous to be
fended off in time or when body defenses are impaired through injury or poor
health that an infection takes hold. You can probably expect to live a long
time, because of your body's natural ability to repulse many invasions and
because of the growing arsenal of weapons your physician has to help when
necessary.
Also of tremendous importance: the growing armamentarium that
medicine now has to increase your defenses against specific disease agents in
advance of attack, and the growing knowledge about natural defenses and how to
help keep them intact, knowledge that you yourself can apply.
