Book 6 of The Window

The Window That Went Missing

The Microbiome and the Immune System

by J. Brandon Hughes

The immune system was starved of a truth it needed.

For millions of years the newborn immune system learned what to tolerate from the mother, the milk, the soil and the animals. Now a baby arrives without half those instructions. This is the series' one book about a subtraction, not a counterfeit. It counts what is demonstrated, corrects its own famous numbers, and weighs what giving some back would cost.

The window

Early life, when the immune system learns what to tolerate

The signal

A missing signal: the microbes the body expected

Contents

Movement One · The Obvious Thing

1. Chapter 1 · The Invisible Majority
2. Chapter 2 · The Rising Tide
3. Interstitial I · The Reef

Movement Two · The Thing You're Kidding Me About

1. Chapter 3 · The Thermostat, Not the Switch
2. Chapter 4 · The Training Window
3. Chapter 5 · The Old Friends
4. Chapter 6 · The Four Subtractions
5. Interstitial II · The Empty Chair

Movement Three · The Proof, and Its Limits

1. Chapter 7 · The Farm
2. Chapter 8 · The Natural Experiments
3. Chapter 9 · The Germ-Free Mouse
4. Chapter 9½ · The Bacterium We Meant to Kill
5. Interstitial III · The Slow Bill

Movement Four · What It Means, and What to Do

1. Chapter 10 · The Gut-Brain Turn
2. Chapter 11 · The People Who Found It
3. Chapter 12 · What To Do, and What It Costs

1. Coda · The Gift You Cannot Remember

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