Chapter 10 



Some Catalytic Aspects of Disease and Drugs 



Disease is defined as "any departure from, failure in, or per- 

 version of normal physiological action in the material constitu- 

 tion or functional integrity of the living organism." This 

 indicates that an understanding of diseases must be based on a 

 consideration of what happens to the biocatalysts, whose activities 

 are responsible for material structure and physiological action. 

 Biocatalysts determine what substances will be formed in the 

 organism, where and at what rates they appear, how they will be 

 chemically combined or altered, and whether they will persist un- 

 changed. Abnormalities in the biocatalysts or their activities often 

 are the basic causes of disease; but every abnormality does not 

 necessarily result in disease. For the most part diseases have been 

 classified on the basis of clinical "syndromes" (concurrent aggre- 

 gate of symptoms) having constant pathologic conditions, and for 

 convenience have been grouped according to the part of the body 

 most affected — heart, lungs, brain, stomach, eyes, nose and throat. 

 Progress in scientific medicine has been largely due to our ability 

 to trace disease processes to lower and lower structural levels and 

 to discover Iioav happenings at these lower levels affect the clinical 

 picture which confronts the practising physician. 



Knowledge that many diseases follow infection by microorgan- 

 isms is so widespread that it is difficult for us to hark back to the 

 days when Anton von Leewenhoek (1632-1723) first saw "little 

 animals" with his home-made microscopes and astonished the 

 Royal Society with his findings; when Francesco Redi (1626-1695) 

 and Lazaro Spallanzani (1729-1799) disproved "spontaneous gen- 

 eration"; and when Louis Pasteur (1822-1895) read his epoch-mak- 

 ing papers "Lactic Acid Fermentation" and "Alcoholic Fermenta- 

 tion" (1857). But we are all familiar with pasteurization of milk, 

 beer and other foods, with the Pasteur preventive treatment against 

 rabies, and with the happy results so generally gained from antisep- 

 tic surgery and treatment of wounds introduced by John Lister 



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