Can you live without antibodies

Answer 1

You can catch the disease. Your immune system will deal with the invading microorganisms and develop antibodies to tackle the disease next time you encounter it.

Of course, there are some diseases you just wouldn't want to catch. That is why vaccination is so useful.

Some diseases cannot be vaccinated against because the microbes change so quickly that the antibodies soon become unsuitable to kill the microbe.

Improved Answer:

Many doctors and nurses treating Infectious Diseases have not gotten the infection. With their knowledge they seem to have an immunity of sorts, they are just more confident with it.

The idea and methods of vaccination, at least the first widely successful vaccinations, were started with Dr. Edward Jenner about 1796 for small pox. He became so confident that by 1806 he prophecised that with vaccination technology small pox could be eliminated on the planet. In about 1979 is had been. But before his 'vaccination' technology, something else was used. It was called: Variolation.

Variolation is something like a vaccination. It was used from about 1232 BC by the Chinese, and was pretty much unknown to Europe which lost 70 million people in one year I think. You start with a healthy person and you slice open his arm. You then place some matter (pus, and probably antibodies too.) from an actual case of small pox into the wound. The person usally gets a mild case of small pox for about 30 days and immunity to it. A small percentage get gravely ill or die. The mortality for small pox I believe was about 30% or caucasions, but much closer to 100% for Indians and blacks. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the British 'freed' 30,000 black slaves and placed them in an internment camp intending to have them serve the British Army. The camp came down with small pox and 28,000 died.

There are other 'non-germ' theories of disease. One is that germs are around us all the time and people rarely get sick. When one is overly tired, poorly fed or dehydrated or suppressed mentally and emotionally then they get ill with a germ that was there all along. The idea is that if one handles the factor that caused it, then the illness vanishes. Say a child was being abused by a brutish adult and gets ill often. The child is relocated to a safe place, realizes the exact nature of the suppresive person, resolves to handle the person even if only slightly, and the child gets well seemingly miraculously.

Answer 2

Yes, that is called natural immunity obtained through exposure to the "wild" virus versus immunity from vaccination with a manufactured vaccine. See the related questions below.