Germs are all around us, both in our environment and in our bodies. When a person is susceptible and they encounter a harmful organism, it can lead to disease and death. The body has many ways of defending itself against pathogens (disease-causing organisms). Skin, mucus, and cilia (microscopic hairs that move debris away from the lungs) all work as physical barriers to prevent pathogens from entering the body in the first place. When foreign microbes invade us, the immune system triggers a series of responses in an attempt to identify and remove them from our bodies. The signs that this immune response is working are the coughing, sneezing, inflammation, and fever we experience, which work to trap, deter, and rid the body of threatening things, like bacteria. These innate immune responses also trigger our second line of defense, called adaptive immunity. Special cells called B cells and T cells are recruited to fight microbes, and also record information about ...