BIOLOGY
by Miller & Levine
[complete Table of Contents]

Use the pull-down menu to jump to any of the Book's 40 Chapters: Chapter Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3 Ch 4 Ch 5 Ch 6 Ch 7 Ch 8 Ch 9 Ch 10 Ch 11 Ch 12 Ch 13 Ch 14 Ch 15 Ch 16 Ch 17 Ch 18 Ch 19 Ch 20 Ch 21 Ch 22 Ch 23 Ch 24 Ch 25 Ch 26 Ch 27 Ch 28 Ch 29 Ch 30 Ch 31 Ch 32 Ch 33 Ch 34 Ch 35 Ch 36 Ch 37 Ch 38 Ch 39 Ch 40

Additional Resources:

SARS - Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
A web page with the latest information about this new health threat.

Beyond Chicken Soup
An article on interferons and other anti-virus drugs, from the November 2001 issue of Scientific American.

Preparing for Battle
A Scientific American article on the annual medical battle against the flu, featuring the role that the flu vaccine plays in fighting the disease.

Chapter 40
THE IMMUNE SYSTEM AND DISEASE 

In this chapter, students will read about the various types of human disease and how infectious diseases are spread. They will also read about how the immune system protects the body from disease, autoimmune diseases, and cancer. The links below lead to additional resources to help you with this chapter. These include Hot Links to Web sites related to the topics in this chapter, the Take It to the Net activities referred to in your textbook, a Self-Test you can use to test your knowledge of this chapter, and Teaching Links that instructors may find useful for their students.

What are Web Codes?

Web Codes for Chapter 40: • Science News: Infectious Diseases & the Immune System • Miller & Levine: How Best to Slow the Spread of AIDS • SciLinks: Diseases • SciLinks: Immune System • SciLinks: Cancer Cells • Self-Test

Section 40-1: Infectious Disease Some diseases are inherited. Others are caused by materials in the environment. Still others are produced by organisms such as bacteria and fungi. Some infectious diseases are spread from one person to another through coughing, sneezing, or physical contact. Other infectious diseases are spread through contaminated water or food. Still others are spread by infected animals.

Section 40-2: The Immune System
Your body's most important nonspecific defense is the skin.
The inflammatory response is a nonspecific defense reaction to tissue damage caused by injury or infection.
Once the body has been exposed to a pathogen, millions of memory B and T cells remain capable of producing specific antibodies to that pathogen.

Section 40-3: Immune System Disorders
When the immune system makes a mistake and attacks the body's own cells, it produces an autoimmune disease.

Section 40-4: Cancer
Cancers begin when something goes wrong with the controls that normally regulate cell growth and division.
Treatments for cancer fall into three general categories: surgery, radiation therapy, and drug therapy.

West Nile Virus: Information from Several Sources:

National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

Should we vaccinate everyone against smallpox and other potential agents of bioterrorism? An Issues Feature in Chapter 19 explores this question.