It would be best if you remembered as you read that your immune system is not the only defense against germs – it is a complicated system involving two companies.

These two companies, both distinctive in their own right, have kept you healthy for years.

Innate and Adaptive Immunity

There are two forms of immunity in the body. They are “unspecific immunity” and “adaptive immunity.” Both are essential for keeping diseases from taking hold in you; to know how they work is to understand how your immune system keeps disease away from you.

Innate Immunity

When disease-causing agents try to enter your body, innate immunity acts as the first line of defense, preventing them from doing so. It’s a nonspecific defense, meaning it doesn’t attach itself to the particular pathogens. But this broader offense–or lack of it–draws its effectiveness closer to home.

Often, your innate immunity is non-specific, which means it will try to eliminate anything it finds in the body that should not be there. This is like a security guard at the door of a building. He searches everybody who comes in, regardless of who they are and what they bring with them. You will readily recognize two parts of your innate immunity: your skin and your hair.

Your skin is vital because it provides a barrier from the rest of the outside world, that is, your body.

The skin does an excellent job of keeping out those things that want to get in. Your hair also plays a vital role in this respect as it catches many different forms of microorganisms, so you must always wash it regularly to to remain clean.

If you have long hair, never put it in your mouth, chew, or bite at it. Who knows what harmful micro-organisms could have been entwined in your hair, and you do not want them in your mouth. Lots of other internal parts support your innate immunity.

One of these is mucus. Just like your hair, mucus also traps micro-organisms. It will trap harmful bacteria before they get into your respiratory system. It is mucus that causes you to have a slight cough just before falling ill. Adaptive Immunity

Several cells will try to eliminate any foreign body they feel should not exist.

Your adaptive immunity is different. It is a more extended range, responding when something already causing trouble gets detected. This is analogous to a fire alarm going off in a building where there is fire- something specific that activates only when there is a real danger.

This portion of your immune system specializes in eliminating sickness by various means. That might be opening a membrane or simply taking it and passing it out of the system. The most typical examples of adaptive immunity are T cells and B cells. These cells have a memory: they remember the specific pathogens they have encountered before.

This is like a detective who recognizes a criminal he encountered. When these cells see a threat, their job is to try and identify it so that they know how to eliminate it.

This is great because when they come back, if they return at all.