"From terra firma to terra plana –

danger is shaking the foundations: deconstructing the immune system"

First, an acknowledgment. I was engaged as a medical advisor to Inspec, Hythe, when this article was accepted. Personal money was very tight at the time and I was very grateful to this company for sponsoring its publication. Jim Ratcliffe, then the financial director of Inspec, granted my request for this favour and I was extremely grateful for this.

This page includes a brief synopsis of the article "From terra firma to terra plana – danger is shaking the foundations. Deconstructing the 'immune system'." It was published in 1999.

PubMed entry

Reproductions of the article

Synopsis and main points

This article emphasises the "presumptions" that lead science up a blind alley
It contends that we are on the edge of a true revolution in immunology
It lists the tenets encompassed by the conventional view
It proceeds to attempt to deconstruct the "immune system" and rebuild it into a "morphostatic system"
It outlines the membership rules for living in the zygote derived colony
It explores "why cell-mediated auto-aggression is so common"
It brings all these former points and articles together in a "synthesis"
It "rounds up" by showing that perspective radically alters our perception of things
It proposes: "the system revolves around intracellular surveillance, within individual cells, for dysfunction. Dysfunction is identified by and within each and every nucleated cell of the colony. Danger is signalled when such cells cannot complete a successful and controlled shutdown as things go wrong."
It moves: " . . towards the apotheosis" by pointing out how the danger concept can be replaced with the concept of mess (spilt cellular debris).
It concludes: "In converting the analogy to a mess/non-mess discriminator, the whole Morphostasis hypothesis has been strengthened. In particular, the fulcral role of gap junctions has become much more secure. Once we chart the problems faced by an immune system and show how a morphostatic system resolves them, there is – I submit – no contest."

Note:

Please note that reference 6 was left out in the published article. Therefore, in the original, references number 6 to 18 in the bibliography should read 7 to 19 (in the body of the article the numbers are correctly presented). Reference 6 is to the internet debate, "A Sense of Self ". This reference has disappeared from the internet but Ken Schaffner (the moderator) has published thie synopsis in a book (ref given at the end of this web page. Please also note that there is also a "lapse of concentration" error at the top of page 216 (first paragraph where "irritable" bowel disease should read "inflammatory" bowel disease.

Things that I would (now) want to change:

In the section "Towards the apotheosis" I have put the following bullet point which would be better stated in the second (italicised) version:

Metazoans never developed an immune system specifically dedicated to identifying foreign organisms.
Metazoans never developed an (adaptive) immune system specifically dedicated to identifying foreign organisms.

It should also be emphasised that macrophages and other phagocytes act rather like primitive free living amoebae. In common with amoebae, phagocytes retain a primordially acquired capacity to recognise and ingest organic debris and micro-organisms; this is their original "diet"; it is their source of energy and nutrition. All specific microbe recognition arises from this primordial property and this is why phagocytes are recruited to the sites of damage (inflammation) to be first destructive and then constructive (the M2 phenotypes).

Reference 6, [Schaffner K, Bandeira A, Dembic Z, Fuchs E, Green D, Langman RE, Weigke WO. 1997. A sense of self: models of immunologic tolerance: A debate. In HMS Beagle: A bioMedNet Publication] is no longer available on the internet as far as I can discover. Email me if you want to read it [jamie at morphostasis.org.uk - edit this appropriately into a standard email address.] I have also now found a book with Ken Schaffner's reminiscences about this debate. The reference is in "Supportive" (link on the Left) under "Models and hypothesis and the philosophy of immunity"

"... provoked by Polly Matzinger's hypothesis of a danger-driven, adaptive immune system "

I noticed this comment today (20200629) on a Google search link that led directly to this article in Science Direct (Elsevier). I had forgotten that I had written this in the article and wish to clarify the inclusion. Since no one else appears to want to bring attention to this general point, it is left to me to point out that this statement does NOT mean that I needed Polly Matzinger's ideas as the the base to start this article. My ideas had matured long before the 1994 danger article. It seems to me that my part in the history of the development of these ideas is still largely suppressed – whatever the underlying reason is for this. Should you think that I have simply barged in on someone else's good ideas then you are wrong; you should read and understand my Precedence web page and also the various links that led to the multiple rejections of my pre-1994 submissions. My morphostasis.org.uk web site also reproduces most of the correspondence relating to the development of my ideas. To repeat a point made in this Precedence article, broadcasting this for attempted self aggrandisement is NOT an honourable goal; doing so, to bring attention to ideas that may help to explode our understanding of immunology, is an honourable and essential process. Suppressing parallel/alternative views may well be regarded as a dishonourable goal unless it has a hidden altruistic purpose. Polly Matzinger, with her particular personality, has certainly helped greatly in prising open the (metaphorical) clam of a disbelieving cognoscenti. I would probably never have gained enough clout to do that through submitting my writings to journals and through badgering key people (as the correspondence confirms). I think, in retrospect, that I was naïve to expect that immunologists, steeped in traditional perspectives, would see the value of these ideas.

Schaffner KF. "Assisting immunologists to examine the philosophical foundations and implications of the new theories of tolerance." pp 86-102 in "Singular selves. Historical Issues and Contemporary Debates in Immunology." Moulin AM and Cambrosio A (Eds). Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS. (Paris) 2000. ISBN 2-84299-210-5 . This is a synopsis of the "Sense of Self" debate by it's moderator.