The human body is amazing in its own ways. On the outside, it doesn’t look like nothing is happening, but on the inside, your body is helping you to stay alive. In the body, there are many body systems that work together to keep you running, like your respiratory system. This system helps you get oxygen into your blood, which then gets distributed in all parts of your body and also gets rid of all the bad stuff in your body. But one of the most important systems in our bodies is the Immune system.

            The Immune system Is the part of the human body that helps fight off Pathogens. Pathogens are the bad things that are not supposed to be in your body such as bacteria, viruses, and so on. The Immune system is not organs but rather a collection of cells called White Blood Cells or for the more scientific term, lymphocytes. There are many types of lymphocytes and each of them has a different function and role that they have to follow to keep all the bad things out of the body. These include B cells, T cells, Natural killer cells, Eosinophil, Neutrophil, and Basophil. And there are also cells that are not really a part of the immune system such as the helper T cell, Mast cell, and the memory  B cell.

               As you can see, there are many different types of white blood cells or lymphocytes and each of them has different functions. Let's start with the B cells. The B cell is not like the other white blood cells with the exception of the mast cell. The B cells don't make physical contact with the pathogen, but they produce antibodies to help fight off the invader. 

  T cells on the other hand work in a whole different way along with the other white blood cells. T cells attack by eating or surrounding the pathogen in its cell membrane, which ends up killing the pathogen. T cells, Natural killer cells or NK cells, and neutrophils are the three main cells that will attack the pathogens and cells that are infected by a virus. 

               But when those cells get overwhelmed or just can't fight a certain pathogen, the special white blood cells come in. Let's take Eosinophil for example. These still fall in the category of the immune system because they can't fight viruses or bacteria but they are the only cells that can kill a parasitic pathogen. Other cells such as Basophlil Can cause somewhat of harm to you but will still help you get rid of the pathogen. Basophil can trigger the release of histamines, which can cause some allergic reactions such as watery, eyes, sneezing, and rashes. If needed they can also alert the other white blood cells about a  pathogen in the body. But that job is mostly the job of the helper T-cell.

The helper T cell is still considered to be apart of the immune system even though they don't attack the pathogen they still command the other white blood cells to the place where the pathogen is located. The Helper T cell also works with the memory B cell. The memory B cell is the cell that helps recognize the invading pathogen and if that same pathogen invaded the body before. If the pathogen invaded the body once before, then the Memory B cells will show rapid response to kill that pathogen.

But this doesn’t last forever sometimes. So your body will need to be introduced to the pathogen dose that won't hurt you that much and this is under control, this is why we have vaccines. To help our immune system and body recognize the pathogen if it invades later. 

             The last cell on this list is the mast cell. This cell is another cell that doesn't Attack the pathogen directly but releases this thing called histamine Which helped kill some of the pathogens but also has an effect on your own body which is sneezing watery eyes and other reactions. But sometimes your own body has a protocol to fight off pathogens with the help of the immune system, How your body does this is by overheating itself to help the white blood cells kill the pathogens easier and this is why sometimes when you're sick you get a high fever this just shows that your body is working hard to protect you.

               With all these cells working together to protect your body they must have come from somewhere right? Well as a matter of fact it all came from your bone marrow. This is where all of your white blood cells are created to become the shells the hubs are body fight off pathogens.   So the next time you get the flu, cold, or other types of sickness Just remember that your body is ready to kill off those pathogens.