phagocyte

A phagocyte is a white blood cell that engulfs and digests — microbes, and the debris they leave behind. It is the workhorse of the innate immune response, which is the fast, general one: a phagocyte acts the same way on anything foreign, with no memory of what it has met before, which is exactly what separates it from a lymphocyte. The two sides divide the immune system's work: phagocytes engulf, and lymphocytes (B cells and T cells) target one specific antigen, make antibodies, and remember. Antibodies help the phagocytes rather than replacing them — an antibody sticks to its antigen and marks it so a phagocyte can engulf it. An item that gives a phagocyte the antibody job, or gives a lymphocyte the eating, has swapped the two families.