ABSTRACT
After an introduction presenting early work at UCLA on the general relationship between the immune and neuroendocrine systems by Rasmussen, a pioneer in this field, the chapter by Solomon (Chap. 1) presents more specific reference to humans. This is a thoughtprovoking account of ideas united with philosophy to explain, along with certain experimental results, the relationship between emotions, immunity, disease, and possible relationships to aging. Should the central nervous system (CNS) and the immune system really be linked? There are several hypotheses subject to experimentation, despite a philosophical bent against such linkage. Both systems function as adaptive and defensive, relating organisms to the external world, and when imbalanced produce disease. Inappropriate defenses in the immune system are referred to as allergies, and in the CNS (the emotional system), neuroses. Reactions against self can occur in both systems. According to Freud, in psychiatry, "retroflexed" hostility leads to depression; in the immune system, it leads to autoimmunity.
