Immune system.

Date: Sun, 18 Feb 1996 13:32:33 -0800
Sender: HERB.TREARNPC.EGE.EDU.TR
From: jonathan treasure <jonno.TELEPORT.COM>
Subject: Re: immune system

>Think of the immune system like your own private army, navy, air force, marine corps, and national and coast guards all rolled up into one. That's how I describe it in my latest release, DOUBLE THE POWER OF YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM. This front-line defense system against infectious diseases is made up of youradenoids, tonsils, thymus, lymph nodes, spleen, Peyer's patches (on the small intestine), lymphatic vessels, appendix, and bone marrow.
>
>What E purpurea does is to rearm these with the weapons they need for the battles of health ahead. The herb helps to sweep dead cells and other debris through the channels of the lymphatic system, and dispatches white blood cells to fight infection. It redoubles the power of the lymph nodes to filter broken-down material within the body. The production of lymphocytes and macrophages is escalated when E purpurea is added to the system on a regular basis.

I really don't believe this militaristic metaphor is correct. The immune system is a subtle set of processes, both innate and acquired, responsible for defining self and other and maintaining the integrity of the body in a number of ways, some of which are potentially as harmful as they are helpful - ( autoimmune disease, allergy, atopy, inflammatory conditions etc)

If you must use analogies, think of your body as a house. Using security guards and highwire fences, searchlights and soldiers to patrol the perimeter is not really the most efficient way of defending your house. First you need to make sure someone is at home! (Allopathic medicine sets alarms around empty houses, and then the security forces make a real mess when they get a false alarm.) You can make your house structurally secure, and then simply conceal your valuables so that if someone uninvited enters they can't do any harm. One could develop this metaphor ad nauseam but it has far more to do with the nature of immunity than the "commie bastard" germ theory such as you suggest.

Secondly, but I see that Michael Moore has already pointed it out, E purpurea is not noted to be more effective than other species. More to the point is probably the parts used and the methods of extraction. But that's another story......