Do You Know Which Part of Your Body Has a Memory Like an Elephant?

Modern research shows that Elephants do indeed have a tremendous memory.  It helps the herd survive because the matriarch can remember other Elephants’ identity and recognize them as familiar or foe.   Memories last for decades and also include how the herd survived a drought three decades earlier by migrating to a distant land that had more water and food.   Recognition techniques include using their trunk to feel another elephant’s pattern of scars on its body.   Wow.


Well, your own body has its own internal, elephant-like memory system in its “immunologic memory.”   Your immune system is your body’s front line of defense against a wide range of pathogens (viruses and bacteria).   If your body had previously fought that pathogen, your immunologic memory will help your system marshal a strong and almost immediate defense against a new invasion, even if its decades later.


Here’s a simple example:   in 1781 the Faroe Islands (between Norway and Iceland) were ravaged by a Smallpox epidemic.   Many died, but many also survived.   The survivors were all immune to Smallpox, and the islands did not have any small pox for 65 years later, when a visitor brought it back.   In that 1846 re-infection, not a single one of the elderly who had been exposed in in 1781 became ill.    Sixty-five years — how’s that for a memory as good (or better?) than an elephant’s?


~~ Robert M Carr

sources:
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/how-long-do-vaccines-last-surprising-answers-may-help-protect-people-longer

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/elephants-never-forget/