PHYSIOLOGY IN THE STUDY OF DISEASE 79 



or does the physician make a diagnosis. If the 

 slight disturbance of action which precedes organic 

 disease were studied from the physiological stand- 

 point, with reference to the question of what 

 structures are working wrongly and why they 

 are working wrongly, medical treatment would 

 have a better chance of success in effecting a cure. 



I am not sure that the naming of diseases has 

 not greatly obstructed the advance of medicine. 

 Generally the name is devised from Greek, as at 

 the time of Galen, and as few practitioners under- 

 stand Greek, this only helps to obscure the nature 

 of the condition, and, at the same time, the extent 

 of their ignorance of its nature. 



Thus, if a child's head is enlarged by an accumu- 

 lation of fluid inside, many are content" to say that 

 it suffers from hydrocephalus, which simply means 

 water on the head, but few force themselves in 

 every case of the kind to determine why the fluid 

 should have accumulated there. 



But to multiply such examples is unnecessary. 



For these reasons it seems that it would be well 

 for medicine if most names of diseases were abolished 

 and if each case were approached from the physio- 

 logical side with the questions : " What organs are 

 working rightly in the patient ? " " What organs 

 are working wrongly ? " '' Why are they working 

 wrongly ? " '' Can they be put right, and if so, 

 how ? " 



