Knowing What to Strike

Knowing What to Strike

Consider vaccination. We think of it as an injection that makes immunity strong.

But what a vaccine contains is not strength. It is a face. It is the work of showing in advance: if this comes in, respond like this. It is not the work of raising the strength of immunity. Reduced to a phrase, what vaccination does is to set the aim.

When I look at immunity, this is what I think of first. Not how strong it is, but whether it knows what to strike.

What Happens When the Aim Goes Off

What becomes of immunity whose aim has gone off already has names.

When it responds excessively to something harmless like pollen or dust, we call it allergy. When it mistakes the body's own tissue for an enemy and strikes it, we call it autoimmunity.

There is something worth noticing here. Neither arises from immunity being weak. If anything it is working vigorously and the direction has gone astray. So if making immunity stronger were the answer, these two would not be explained.

Stopping Is Also the Work of Immunity

Immunity does not consist only of the hand that strikes. There is a separate apparatus that holds it back from striking one's own body.

This holding back does not happen of itself if left alone. It is maintained with continual effort. The side that sorts out what to strike and calls a halt once the job is done has to keep working for one's own body to be safe.

So saying that immunity is working well contains two things together: striking when needed, and stopping when it should not strike.

The Alarm Sounds Even With Nothing Coming From Outside

There is one more thing.

The signals immunity reads are not limited to what comes from outside. Fragments spilling from one's own injured or exhausted cells are read as alarms too. The very fact that a substance which should be inside a cell is now outside it is a sign that something has gone wrong.

So a state arises in which the switch of immunity is on although there is no infection. This pathway is involved when a low ember will not go out in a long-exhausted body.

Tests Count Numbers

A blood test measures how many immune cells there are and which antibodies are present. It measures accurately.

But whether that immunity aims precisely and stops in time is not among the items counted. So the counts can be normal while minor illnesses never stop, and the counts can be normal while there is an excessive response to something harmless. It is not the parts but the mesh between the parts that has been shaken.

What I Look At

So I do not look only at raising immunity. I look first at the conditions in which aiming and stopping have gone off. Whether sleep has shortened, whether tension has been switched on for a long time, whether a low ember somewhere in the body has not gone out.

When I use herbal medicine I do not use it with the thought of making immunity strong either. In one person, some responses may be excessive while others fail to end in time. So I look first at what could be unsettling those two: whether sleep has shortened, whether tension has run on, whether inflammation that has not yet settled remains.

However, if infections keep recurring, if unexplained fever or weight loss continues, or if joints swell together in several places, that is a signal beyond this story. It means there is something to be ruled out before coordination is addressed.

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Think of immunity only as strength and allergy and autoimmunity go unexplained. Neither comes from immunity being insufficient; both come from the aim being off.

I take this picture as good fortune. Strength cannot be raised at will, but the conditions in which aiming and stopping go off — sleep, tension, and embers still alight — are on the side that can be worked with.

If minor illnesses never stop while the tests are normal, it may not mean immunity is lacking. It is the body's account of a coordination of aiming and stopping that has been shaken.