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Day – 59: Biology Class Notes
Human Health & Diseases L15
• Nature has provided certain ways in the body to defend ourselves from the invasion of pathogens and

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therefore, from the disease.
• The ability of a host’s body to prevent or overcome the effects caused due to the invasion by pathogenic
organisms and its toxins is known as resistance and immunity.

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• Resistance is considered as an inherent factor and those acquired during life to overcome the disease,
while the immunity is accepted to be due to the acquired factors that help in resistance.

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• The host body has two lines of defense that must be overcome by a pathogen before establishing an
infection.
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• External defense mechanism
• Internal defense mechanism
EXTERNAL DEFENSE:
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It includes physical and chemical barriers.

(a) Physical Barriers
• Skin : The skin is physical barrier of body. Its outer tough layer, the stratum corneum prevents the
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entry of bacteria and viruses.

• Mucous Membrane: Mucus secreted by mucous membrane traps the micro-organisms and
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immobilises them. Microorganisms and dust particles can enter the respiratory tract with air
during breathing which are trapped in the mucus. The cilia sweep the mucus loaded with
microorganisms and dust particles into the pharynx (throat). From the pharynx it is thrown out or
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swallowed for elimination with the faeces.

(b) Chemical barriers:
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• Oil secreted by the oil glands and sweat secreted by sweat glands make the surface of the skin
acidic . This does not allow the microorganisms to establish on the skin. Some friendly bacteria also
occur on the skin which releases acids and other metabolic wastes that check the growth of
pathogens. The sweat also contains an enzyme named lysozyme that destroys the cell walls of
many bacteria.
• Certain bacteria normally live in vagina. These bacteria produce lactic acid. Lactic acid kills the
foreign bacteria.

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 • Thus physical and chemical barriers form the first line of defense.
INTERNAL DEFENCE
• The internal defense is carried on by white blood corpuscles, macrophages, inflammatory reaction, fever
and interferons.
Ø WHITE BLOOD CORPUSCLES (LEUCOCYTES):
• The leucocytes in general and lymphocytes in particular are capable of squeezing out through the
wall of the blood capillaries into the extra-vascular regions. This phenomenon is called
DIAPEDESIS. The leucocytes protect in different ways.
• Lymphocytes: Lymphocytes can produce plasma cells which secrete antibodies to provide

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immunity.
• Monocytes: They are phagocytic in action.
• Eosinophils: Eosinophils can attach themselves to parasitic forms and cause their destruction by

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liberating lysosomal enzymes on their surface.
• Neutrophils: They eat harmful germs and are, therefore phagocytic in nature.

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Ø Macrophages :
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• The macrophages are formed by enlargement of monocytes.
• They are large cells which are phagocytic in nature.
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Ø Inflammatory Response :
• When the microorganisms like bacteria, viruses, etc. enter the body tissue through some injury, these
produce some toxic substances which kill more cells. These broken cells also release some material
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which attract the mast cells. The mast cells release histamine.
• HISTAMINE causes dilation of capillaries and small blood vessels surrounding the injury and increases
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the permeability of the capillary walls. The more blood flows to area making it red and warm. The fluid
(plasma) leaks out into the tissue spaces, causing its swelling.
• This reaction of the body is known as INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE. The plasma that accumulates at the
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injured site dilutes the toxins secreted by bacteria and decreases their effect.
FEVER
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• The inflammatory response may be in the region of the wound (localized), or it may spread all over the
body (systemic).
• In systemic inflammatory response, the number of WBC increases generally, the fever is caused by the
toxins released by the pathogens or by compounds called pyrogens (fever producing substances; Gr.
Pyre = fire).
• These compounds are released by W.B.C. in order to regulate temperature of the body.

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 • Moderate fever stimulates the phagocytes and inhibits growth of microorganisms. However, a very
high fever is dangerous.

INTERFERONS
• These are the low molecular weight glycoproteins released by the viral infected cells which they help to
combat.
• These interferons do not inactivate the virus, but they make the unattacked cells less susceptible so
they are prevented from the attack of virus.
• They also prevent the viruses from taking over the cellular machinery.

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• Interferon proteins have proved to be effective in, treating influenza and hepatitis, but their role in
cancer treatment is doubtful.
• Thus the leucocytes,. Macrophages, inflammatory response, fever and interferons from SECOND LINE

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OF DEFENSE.
• This is due to the fact that the body is able to defend itself from most of these foreign agents.

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• This overall ability of the host to fight the disease-causing organisms, conferred by the immune system
is called immunity.
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• Immunity is of two types: (i) Innate immunity and (ii) Acquired immunity.

ACQUIRED IMMUNITY
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• Acquired immunity, on the other hand is pathogen specific.

• It is characterised by memory.
• This means when our body encounters a pathogen for the first time produces a response called primary
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response which is of low intensity.

• Subsequent encounter with the same pathogen elicits a highly intensified secondary or anamnestic
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response.
• This is ascribed to the fact that our body appears to have memory of the first encounter.
• The primary and secondary immune responses are carried out with the help of two special types of
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lymphocytes present in our blood,

• B-lymphocytes and
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• T-lymphocytes.
• The B-lymphocytes produce an army of proteins in response to pathogens into our blood to fight with
them. These proteins are called antibodies.
• The T-cells themselves do not secrete antibodies but help B cells to produce them.
• Each antibody molecule has four peptide chains, two small called light chains and two longer called
heavy chains.
• Hence, an antibody is represented as H2L2.

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• Different types of antibodies are produced in our body.
o IgA,
o IgM,
o IgE,
o IgG are some of them.

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• Because these antibodies are found in the blood, the response is also called as humoral immune
response.
• This is one of the two types of our acquired immune response – antibody mediated.
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• The second type is called cell-mediated immune response or cell-mediated immunity (CMI).
• The T-lymphocytes mediate CMI.
• Very often, when some human organs like
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heart, eye, liver, kidney fail to function

satisfactorily, transplantation is the only
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remedy to enable the patient to live a

normal life.
• Then a search begins – to find a suitable
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donor.
• Why is it that the organs cannot be taken from just anybody?
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• What is it that the doctors check?

• Grafts from just any source – an animal, another primate, or any human beings cannot be made since
the grafts would be rejected sooner or later.
• Tissue matching, blood group matching are essential before undertaking any graft/transplant and even
after this the patient has to take immuno–suppresants all his/her life.
• The body is able to differentiate ‘self ’ and ‘nonself’ and the cell-mediated immune response is
responsible for the graft rejection.

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