Built-In Protection

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I’ve just spent $250 repairing a minor scratch on my car! Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if vehicles could do what our bodies do to protect themselves. Cars have some built-in features, but our bodies are loaded with devices that go into action automatically whenever we need protection.

Acting like the shock absorbers on a car, fluids surround all the vital parts of our body. The most vital, the brain, has its own fluid-filled chambers, the ventricles, which further cushion and protect it.

Our eyes are protected by a fringe of lashes and overhanging brows. They are kept constantly moist by our unconscious blinking. This movement spreads a protective fluid over the eyes and when anything approaches the eye, the eyelid blinks automatically.

Our nasal passages are lined with fine fibres that remove small particles out of the air we breathe, before it passes into the lungs. Any invader in the nose or windpipe is ejected immediately by sneezing and coughing. Protective reflexes like these work automatically, without involving the thinking part of our brain.

When your hand touches a hot surface, muscles in the arm, shoulder and body automatically spring into action. Pain itself, though unpleasant, is an important part of the body’s protection system. It pulls us from danger before we are more seriously injured and it forces us to keep any injured part still, so that the body’s repair service can work more efficiently.

So next time you visit your mechanic, think about all the built-in protection that is part of your own chassis.