272 PSYCHIATRY 



mal conditions, of illness and its symptoms. Virchow's experimental 

 investigations to clear up morphological characteristics of disease 

 go only to the beginning, and Prof. Orth urged that better attention 

 should be given to physiological methods for the determination and 

 interpretation of functional disorders in the unhealthy organ; yet 

 pathological morphology must remain the unchangeable ground- 

 work of all medical knowledge and thought ; its most important func- 

 tion is its purpose for the upbuilding of pathological physiology, for 

 the understanding of the living processes and their disturbances in 

 the sick body. 



Bacteriology in its marvelous progress leads investigation directly 

 into the field of pathological physiology, and finds explanations in the 

 normal physical and chemical reactions that belong to the normal 

 cell physiology. Pathology, taking bacteriology into its special pro- 

 vince, is engaged in the study of problems relating to the nature of 

 disease. General physiology has shown that the physico-chemical 

 reactions in living substances are fundamental and essential factors 

 in the production of vital phenomena; it finds, in its investigation 

 of the component elements of cell-substance, that in physiological 

 chemistry is its chief aid in the explanation of vital activity and its 

 disorders. Herter 1 reviews our present knowledge of the chemical 

 defenses of the organism against disease ; it serves to emphasize the 

 varied chemical activities of the cells, and to render more intelligible 

 the phenomena of diseases that result from modifications or failure 

 of these cellular functions. He says: "Modern pathology has made 

 us familiar with the conception that disease is generally the expres- 

 sion of a reaction on the part of the cell to injurious influences. The 

 only rational conception of the ability of the human body to defend 

 itself against disease by means of chemical agencies is that these 

 defenses ultimately reside in the cells themselves. Many of the phe- 

 nomena of disease are caused by the modification of function that 

 occurs during the action of the cell in resisting injurious influences." 

 Ernst 2 has shown that, notwithstanding the great obscurity of the 

 subject and the somewhat conflicting theories, the point is main- 

 tained that in all reactions the cell activity intervenes at some stage 

 of the production of immunity; and that most probably the re- 

 actions that occur are closely related to these that go on under the 

 ordinary conditions of tissue metabolism. These considerations are 

 consistent with the fundamental doctrine of cell physiology and 

 pathology. 



It appears from a brief survey of the history of pathology that 

 when at first it was part of anatomy, it was then preeminently mor- 

 phological, and that this characteristic motive still prevails to a 



1 Herter, C. A., Chemical Pathology, 1902. 



* Ernst, H. C., Modern Theories of Bacterial Immunity, 1903. 



