From the stigma and fear that pervaded early AIDS research to what the Amish can tell us about allergies, An Elegant Defense proves time and time again that our understanding of the immune system is inextricably tied to culture, belief, and community.Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Īusten lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. The immune system is wily and complex, but most illuminating is how the body’s fight against disease parallels battles waged on the outside.
” and proceeds with a clear and thoughtful description of how researchers discovered the way the body responds to different pathogens and fights disease-in other words, how “the dance between self and alien took place.” An anecdote about the “three wise men” of what’s known as the monoclonal antibody starts with “A Dane, an Argentinian Jew, and a German walk into a research lab.
Ritchel weaves dense, complex research into suspense and human drama his book reads, at times, like a harrowing mystery novel. Individuals with compromised immune systems, including that of his friend since childhood Jason, who opens the book on his way to receive a new treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Richtel’s research hinges on four intimate stories of The book reveals depths about both immunology and sociocultural responses to illness and disease, making the immune system’s function-to maintain wellness-all the more amazing.
That will change after reading Matt Richtel’s An Elegant Defense, a deeply reported account of how the immune system works, how researchers came to understand it (it started with tumors on a chicken), and what happens when disease swarms its defenses. You probably don’t give your immune system enough credit.
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