Page 101 - The Miracle in the Immune System

Step By Step To All-Out War 99

Sometimes, phagocytes cannot catch up with the in-
creasing numbers of the enemy, at which point big
phagocytic cells, macrophages cut in. We can liken the
macrophage to cavalrymen cleaving their way through
the middle of the foe. At the same time, macrophages
secrete a fluid, which sets off a general alarm in the
body to increase the body temperature.
Macrophages have yet another important character-
istic. When a macrophage cell captures and engulfs a vi-
rus, it tears off a special portion of the virus, which it
carries on itself like a flag. This serves as a sign for the
other elements of the defence system as well as an item
of information.
Once the gathered intelligence is forwarded to the
helper T cells, by the help of which they identify the en-
emy, their first task is to immediately alert the killer T
cells, stimulating them to multiply. Within a short peri-
od, the stimulated killer T cells will become a formida-
ble army. This is not the only function of the helper T
cells. They also ensure that more phagocytes arrive at
the battlefront while they transfer the gathered intelli-
gence relating to the enemy to the spleen and lymph
nodes.
Once the lymph nodes receive this information, the
B cells, which have been waiting for their turn, are acti-
vated. (The B cells are manufactured in the bone mar-
row and then migrate to the lymph nodes to wait for
their turn to be of service).
The activated B cells go through a number of stages.
Every stimulated B cell begins to multiply. The multipli-
cation process continues until thousands of identical