The Immune System in Human Skin

A couple of days ago, I was out riding and happened upon my friend Hammond Suisse out riding fences. He would find a place where the fence had a flaw, and either fixed it or made a note to come back later with more equipment.

We rode together a spell, and conversation turned to how I had been fighting off a lingering cold.

Hammond said, "We have an amazingly complex immune system that God engineered for us. After the fall of man, it gets overwhelmed sometimes." He glanced at a scrape on his arm.

Arms and hands, Pexels / Daria Liudnaya (modified at PhotoFunia)

"Seems to me that I got something in common with immune systems."

"How so?" I asked.

"We're both riding fences. You know, doing work that's often unseen but sure is important. Churches, stores, companies have often unseen people doing work to keep those things going." He glance down. "I better clean that up. Good thing I'm almost done," he added. Then he asked, "Did you know that the human skin itself has its own immune system?" That was news to me.

Immune systems have a great deal going on, defying molecules-to-medical doctor evolution by their very existence. They have to distinguish between friendly microbes and those that need to get eradicated. The immune system of the skin has its own specialty areas, including removing invaders that might sneak in through that abrasion on Hammond's arm.

The skin, the largest organ in the human body, covers the entire body. New research has now documented that “The skin — once thought to be a mainly passive barrier — can produce its own antibodies that fight off infections, a pair of studies reported in Nature this week.” This research finding was nothing less than a medical revelation. The specified complexity of the skin’s immune system is illustrated by the observation that. . . 

To keep reading, saddle up and pay a visit to "Human Skin Has Its Own Immune System.'