304. SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



seems to be kept within bounds in the vigorous 

 bird may increase sevenfold, spreading, for instance, 

 to new organs, and this may give the death-blow. 

 We submit, however, that in wild Nature, " un- 

 tainted by man's misery," as Shelley said, health 

 and disease do not " keep house together in indis- 

 soluble partnership." As to the alleged occurrence 

 of caries in Permian fossil-fishes and osteomyelitis 

 in a cave-bear, perhaps it is not unjustifiable to 

 regard such cases with a little suspicion. 



In the second place, are we not a little apt to 

 forget what has been recently emphasized in Pro- 

 fessor J. G. Adami's interesting and courageous 

 Mcdicial Contributions to the Study of Evolution 

 ( 1918) , that certain uncomfortable bodily processes, 

 often included under the category of disease, are 

 the organism's efforts to adjust itself to what is in 

 man's case an extraordinarily subtle and changeful 

 environment in great part very artificial? Thus 

 against the old view of inflammation as essentially 

 an injurious process leading to the destruction of 

 tissue, we have the modern view, firmly associated 

 with the work of Metchnikoff, that inflammation 

 is a response or reaction to an intruding irritant, 

 and tends to counteract its deleterious effects. 

 The reaction may be inadequate or excessive, for 

 the organism cannot be perfectly adapted to every 

 casualty. But inflammation is none the less in the 

 direction of repair and self-preservation. What we 

 should marvel at is not human disease, but the 

 many-sidedness of our power of counteracting the 



