There are thousands of components to the immune system, and during the course of learning about some of these it can appear that the immune system is far more complex and complicated than necessary for achieving what is, on the surface, the simple task of eliminating an infectious organism. There are a number of reasons why the immune system is complex. The first of these is the desirability of eliminating pathogens without causing damage to the host. Getting rid of a pathogen is theoretically easy. If you had an infection in your liver you could produce a nasty toxin that would kill the pathogen; unfortunately it would also destroy your liver. Killing pathogens is not difficult, but getting rid of pathogens without damaging the host is much more complicated. (more…)
The final stage of the disease process (although it may not be the final stage of the infection) is the actual production of di ...
Most initial infections are local, i.e. the infectious agent gains entry to the body at a single site, e.g. via an insect bite ...
The body's innate resistance to many pathogens is provided by enzymes and other proteins in the blood and tissue fluids. These ...
The way in which pathogens spread through the body is influenced to some extent by whether they live intra-cellularly, extra-ce ...
There are several pathogen types that can cause disease include many groups of single-celled microorganisms and larger multicel ...