That's a good question. I can imagine that there was a time before there was life on Earth, and then clearly there was a time X-hundred thousand years or a million years later when there were things that we would all recognize as biological.
A high count indicates the presence of inflammation in the body. Because white blood cells are calculated by the number of cells per volume of blood, test results can vary between labs. Different labs use different degrees of measurements for the white blood cell count.
Bacterial and viral infections are the most common causes of a high white blood cell count. Fungal or parasitic infections can also increase the number of white blood cells in the blood. The increase in WBCs due to infection is caused by a normal immune system response that stimulates the bone marrow to release stored white blood cells.