Like the whole process of the lymph fluid travelling through the nodes. I opened my old GCSE bio textbook for funsies and I’ve realised I have lost a few braincells over the years and cannot wrap my head around it. I don’t know what came over me to want to understand this so bad, I just do.
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Hi. Doctor here.
A simplified lineage of blood cells kinda goes like this:
* Grandfather: Bone marrow stem cells
* Grandpa has two sons. One (Uncle) goes on to make the Red blood cells and the other one (Dad) makes the White blood cells.
* Dad has a couple sons of his own, one of which is our friend the Lymphocyte.
Lymphocytes specialize in producing antibodies and fighting infections, particularly viral infections. Covid-19 for example is something in the lymphocyte’s wheelhouse.
Now Lymph **fluid** is a slightly different thing. Our blood vessels are not solid pipes. They have holes in them. Through those holes, fluid and a couple white cells constantly leak out into our tissues.
This has the advantage of making sure we have our trusty white cell soldiers to protect the tissues. But they all have to get back into the blood eventually. Most of them don’t crawl back through the same gaps they came out of, because they have captured a few germs on their way.
This is where our lymphatic system comes is. It takes all this leaked fluid, lymphocytes and the enemies they’ve captured, through lymph nodes (think of them as checkpoints for incoming soldiers), and finally once all the captured enemies are processed and disposed of, the lymphocyte soldiers and leaked fluid return to the blood for another tour of battle.
The lymphatic system is essentially our body’s way of bringing our biological veterans back to base for their next great adventure.
Hope this helps 🙂
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