4 i6 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



at which the disorders occur we construct such diseases as 

 ophthalmia neonatorum, infantile diarrhoea, scurvy of child- 

 hood, adolescent insanity, climacteric insanity, senile gangrene, 

 and so forth ; and by including in the correlate the extra- 

 corporeal cause we construct such diseases as caisson-disease, 

 wool-sorter's disease, chimney sweeper's cancer, mountain- 

 sickness, and many others. Are these true diseases, or are 

 they not ? 



As long as we adhere to the meaning of ' a disease ' — that 

 it is the whole group of correlated disorders from which the 

 patient suffers, together with their intra-corporeal cause — it 

 clearly does not matter in the least what name we give to this 

 group so long as the name is not misleading ; but the titles of 

 diseases, when they are meant to be significant of the cause, 

 are so apt to mislead, or to become obsolete and inappropriate 

 in the light of new knowledge, that it is inadvisable to use 

 such titles. The time of life at which a disease occurs is clearly 

 not one of the disorders that enters into the composition of 

 the disease ; but there is no objection to calling attention 

 by the name of a disease to the time of life at which it occurs 

 provided that it does occur solely at that time of life, and 

 provided that we do not confuse it with similar diseases that 

 may occur at other times of life. In fact, the names of most 

 of the diseases that are denominated by the time of life at 

 which they occur are open to one or other of these objections. 

 Infantile diarrhoea does not materially differ from diarrhoea 

 occurring at other times of life, nor is there a special ' infantile ' 

 diarrhoea different from other diarrhoeas that may occur in 

 infants or adults. Gonorrhceal ophthalmia is more frequent 

 in the newly-born, but no age is immune from it. Adolescent 

 insanity and climacteric insanity have, it is true, their proper 

 features, and the former title is unobjectionable, because that 

 peculiar form of insanity does not occur at any other time of 

 life, and no other form of insanity occurs in adolescents ; but 

 the term climacteric insanity is apt to mislead, and frequently 

 does mislead, alienists into calling every form of insanity that 

 occurs about the climacteric in women climacteric insanity, 

 though women at that time of life are no more immune from 

 other forms of insanity than men are. 



A disease is always, as the article asserts, a single thing, a 

 unified whole, an individual or unit. Yet, as has been said, 



