15. General Remarks on Drugs and Disease 



What characterizes modern medicine as compared to the earlier 

 empiricism is that it is based on our understanding of the processes 

 underlying disease. In order to understand a disturbed structure or 

 function, we have to understand the normal one first. This is why- 

 medicine has to lag one step behind the advances in basic knowl- 

 edge. To compensate for this, any progress in basic knowledge can 

 be expected to bear fruits for medicine as its natural consequence. 

 But conversely, if there is a gap in basic knowledge there must be 

 a bottomless pit in our understanding of disease. There is such a 

 pit and the author will dive into it in the hope that having £* in 

 mind, he will hit bottom, but warns the reader who is adverse to 

 speculation not to follow him. Most of this last part of this book 

 will be pure speculation. 



The author's research has always been dominated by the idea 

 that there is but one living matter which has overgrown this 

 globe's surface, taking on different shapes, sizes, colors, and com- 

 plexities, adapting itself to different conditions. In spite of the 

 great variations in its appearance life is built on the same limited 

 number of basic principles, wherever and in whatever form we 

 meet it; there is no real difference between "cabbages and kings." 

 But if the foundations of normal life are simpler tlian its appear- 

 ances, then the same may be true also for disease, and a great 

 variety of symptoms can be caused by disturbance of single basic 

 mechanisms, and the way in which disease declares itself may have 

 no direct relation to the underlying cause. Vitamin Bi, for in- 

 stance, is a coenzyme, equally important for all cells, animal or 

 vegetable, but all the same, its lack in higher animals causes poly- 

 neuritis. If highly unsaturated fatty acids are withheld from the 



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