The following is Chapter 5 from my book: The Self-Repairing Memory.¹

I saw something in 1961 that has remained so fixed in my memory that it is one of the motivating factors for this series of twelve Self-repairing© booklets. It has repeatedly focused my thinking and my modus operandi (that is, my "MO" and my way of life) on the principle of self-repairing health. It's not a theory. It's not a speculation. It's a reality of life. I was there. I saw it.

Forty-one years ago (yes, 41) I was a medical student at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. In Immunology Lab, we were studying the immune system, which is an infinitely complex system of living cells and chemicals whose function is to maintain health. Health is the normal state of our bodies. Our bodies have been designed by our Creator to remain in a state of health.

This is also called "homeostasis" which is the principle that your body tries to maintain stability (that is, health) by means of the coordinated responses of its parts to any internal or external condition that will try to disturb it (that is, cause un-health). In other words, homeostasis = health. This is how you were designed - to remain in health.

But why is it called the Immune System? Because the word immune means to be protected from, to be exempt from, to be safe from. What, then, are you exempt from? From illness of all types, regardless of the cause. This System is a complex network of cells, organs, tissues and tubes which resemble blood vessels, and which is widely distributed throughout your body. Its components are everywhere in your body, except in your brain, but even there its benefits are exerted because its cells (white blood cells) and its chemicals (antibodies) go wherever there are blood vessels. And this is very good news, indeed, because it's the functioning of this System which will keep you free of disease, and maintaining efficient bodily functions, including that of your memory.

That's why this booklet is called The Self-repairing Memory --- Hope for your future.

Every day, thousands of cells throughout our bodies are either dying, or getting old beyond usefulness, or being damaged by chemicals we ingest or produce ourselves (such as free radicals), or being weakened by lack of necessary chemicals such as vitamins or minerals. This includes the brain cells that are responsible for memory.

The fundamental principle of this booklet, and that of the other eleven booklets in this Self-repairing series, is that a strong immune system will protect us from our own malfunctioning cells, as well as those which get into us from the outside, so we will remain in a state of homeostasis well into our 60s, 70s, and beyond. Eventually, our Immune System itself will weaken and lose its ability to protect us from illness, but, by that time, we will be old and full of years. After all, that's the principle of dying we see in many places in the Bible ... to die old and full of years ... not struck down by a disease at the age of 54, and not to be suffering from multiple illnesses for 20 years before dying at the age of 72.

But Dr. Ted, have you forgotten to tell us what you saw when you were a Medical Student 41 years ago?

No. I actually saw a phagocyte in action, in real-time.

What's that?

A phagocyte is a large white blood cell that eats damaged cells, dead cells, and foreign substances such as bacteria, and then recycles the atoms & molecules. "Phago" + "cyte" = a cell that eats.

In Immunology Lab, we set up microscopes and looked at samples of liquids with live phagocytes and live bacteria in them. I searched through the sample until I found a macrophage near a bacterium. The macrophage was larger than the bacterium (using the analogy of U.S. coins, its relative size was that of a silver dollar to a dime). The macrophage appeared to be sort of a roundish glob that was very slowly changing its shape and sort of slithering toward the bacterium. Particles inside of it were slowly streaming along its inner surface, changing its shape, and propelling it toward its enemy.

I stared in amazement, with my eyes glued to the eyepieces of the binocular microscope, while the macrophage very slowly changed its shape from a rounded glob to a slight U-shape, and then to a more pronounced U-shape. It kept slithering slowly toward its unsuspecting "enemy", until the bacterium was within the confines of the two arms of the "U". Then, within my mind, there was a drum-roll with a militant crescendo while the ends of the "U" began to close in behind the bacterium. I was there. I saw it happening right before my eyes. One aspect of the Immune System being carried out ... phagocytosis. Then the cymbals crashed in my mind, making quite a din, as the two ends of the "U" touched each other, and completely surrounded the "enemy". The two arms of the "U" thickened until there was no free space around the bacterium, and the macrophage "swallowed" the bacterium, where it digested it and then recycled its atoms and molecules.

I was there.

I saw it happen before my eyes, 41 years ago.

I will remember this for the rest of my life.

And so will you.

Your body has been designed to be self-repairing.

There is HOPE for your future, a future of health!

1--©2002 Theodore D. Langley, Ph.D.