CONSERVATIVE DESIGN OF ORGANIC DISEASE. 163 



sailed " with small-pox ; of a city " assaulted " with cholera, and of 

 its inhabitants being decimated by the " stealthy ravages " of con- 

 sumption. Now, so considered, there is no such thing as disease. 

 Who has ever seen it isolated from the body ? And when, in accord- 

 ance with this view, we ask the question, " What is disease ?" there is 

 but one answer, namely : Disease is the tertiary product of two fac- 

 tors : 1. Of impressions or stimuli acting upon the body from without ; 

 and, 2. Of the reactions performed by the organism in response to the 

 impression of such stimuli. The tertium quid following the action 

 without, and the reaction within, is the thing " disease." Exactly in 

 the same manner a stone thrown against a pane of glass makes a hole 

 in it ; yet, when we try to consider the hole as a separately-existing 

 entity, we find it does not so exist. If it did, we might take away 

 the pane of glass, and leave the hole by itself, but this is impossible. 

 The aperture in the glass is a tertium quid resulting from two factors, 

 viz., 1. The action of the stone from without ; and, 2. The reaction of 

 the glass when struck by the projected missile. Furthermore, it is 

 evident that the quality of the resulting tertiary product can be made 

 to vary indefinitely, either by varying the character of the action (i, e., 

 by modifying the shape, size, direction, velocity, etc., of the stone), or 

 by altering the reactive properties of the glass (i. e., by modifying its 

 thickness, elasticity, inclination, etc.). Equally so the quality of dis- 

 ease will vary in difi*erent individuals in accordance with the varia- 

 tion in the quality of their reactive powers, as w^ell as in conformity 

 with the character of the actions by which the reactions are elicited. 



Now, since the external stimuli which act upon the body in the 

 manner we have described only produce their efiect in living organ- 

 isms (for in dead bodies and inorganic matter they do not elicit simi- 

 lar reactions), it is evident that the tertiary products which we call 

 organic disease are purely the result of vital processes, and for this 

 reason alone must be conservative, as are all the phenomena of life. 

 Once dispute this and we should have to adopt the other alternative, 

 that the organism would be better oflf if the reactive powers with 

 which we find it to be endowed were annulled ; and this conclusion 

 would compel us to acknowledge the possibility of our thinking out 

 an improvement upon Nature a monstrous assumption, which no 

 student of science will for a moment entertain. 



In a condition of health the various processes going on in the body, 

 which we call vital phenomena, are nothing more than a series of inter- 

 nal reactions provoked and maintained in obedience to the impression 

 of surrounding conditions that act upon the organism from without. 

 The reactive powers possessed by the healthy organism are perfectly 

 natural to it, and, so long as the external stimuli impressing the body 

 from without are also perfectly natural, the resulting tertium quid \i\!\\. 

 simply consist of a naturally-constructed, a physiologically-developed 

 organism. And if we now ask ourselves, "What is the use or design 



