son 



no local disease would exist if the general health were good: there 

 is no general disorder of health which does not originate in 

 some of the abdominal viscera. This doctrine is at least very 

 comprehensive and apparently very simple. We shall examine a 

 little the grounds of it, or how far it is likely to be true. To re- 

 duce it to its greatest simplicity, all, or we will put in a saving 

 clause and say most, diseases originate in disorder of the stomach 

 and bowels, &c. 



24. The evidence by which it is attempted to support this 

 doctrine is, 1st, there are few diseases in which the symptoms of 

 disorder of these viscera, or of some of them, are not present ; 2nd, 

 these diseases get well as the symptoms of disorder of the prepara- 

 tory organs disappear. To reduce the question as much as possi- 

 ble without forsaking the doctrine, instead of including all these 

 viscera, we will speak of one merely as a representative of the rest, 

 or of as many as may be disordered, and this one we will say is 

 the liver: " all or most diseases originate from disorder of 

 the liver." 



25. The liver is disordered in most diseases, therefore 

 disorder of the liver is the cause of most diseases; this is the 

 argument : we will suppose the disorder of the liver to be indicated 

 by furred tongue, loss of appetite, irregular bowels, &c.; it is best 

 to agree upon one sign, to avoid a multiplicity of words: let a 

 furred tongue then be, if occasion requires it, the representative 

 of all the other symptoms of disorder of the digestive organs. 



26. Disorder of the liver can be assigned as the cause which 

 produces other disorder only upon the argument of succession, 

 which is analogous to causation. There is disorder of the health 

 accompanied by a furred tongue: can it be settled in all cases 

 which of these is the antecedent, and which the consequence? can 

 it be said whether the liver is disordered first and then the health, 

 or whether other disorder precedes that of the liver? the succession 

 is not clear; and if this fails the argument loses its principal, if not 

 its only support. There are other cases in which the succession is 

 clear: a person from exposure to the weather has a rigor, he feels 

 a lassitude with dull aching sensation over the whole body, these 

 are the first symptoms; the pulse is quickened, and the tongue 

 becomes furred, and there is loss of appetite, such is the sensible 

 order of occurrence. In this instance it is clear, from the obvious 

 succession of symptoms (and we have nothing else to trust), that 

 other disorder precedes that of the digestive organs. Take another 

 case: a person receives a deep wound, a lacerated one, or a gun- 

 shot wound ; his tongue was clean enough before this happened, 

 but in thirty-six hours from the infliction of the wound the tongue 

 is furred and there is loss of appetite. From these facts, and there 

 are many such, it is proved that disorder of the digestive organs 

 may be produced by disease originating e/seivhere, at least as truly 

 as that disease elsewhere might be produced by disorder of the 

 digestive organs. These facts refute the doctrine as an universal 



