68 MICROBES AND THE MICROBE-KILLER. 



little use to theorize. We must discover facts ; we must 

 look at the matter in a practical way, and endeavor to 

 deal with it so that it can be readily understood by any 

 one who wants something more than a string of techni- 

 calities. 



The reader has probably indulged in the perusal of 

 medical books which tell him how to cure himself. 

 Most of the books which attempt to popularize these 

 subjects are pernicious. They give symptoms and rem- 

 edies. They draw the usual differences between ail- 

 ments, and define particular remedies for each. People 

 who read them are prone to imagine themselves afflicted 

 with symptoms that they see described, and many get 

 up from their perusal convinced that they have cancer or 

 Bright's disease, or consumption, or heart trouble, when 

 in truth they have nothing whatever the matter with 

 them, or, at most, a disordered stomach. 



From my point of view they are yet more pernicious, 

 being bad not only in their consequences, but in their 

 principles. For the position I take is entirely at variance 

 with that which the advice of the usual family physi- 

 cian supports. My discovery, as may be gleaned from 

 what I have already said, is entirely different from any- 

 thing that has ever been introduced from the beginning 

 to the present day for the purpose of curing disease. 

 My proposition is simple, but it comes from study and 

 observation of Nature. I have found that all disease 

 may be concentrated under one head. It may assume 

 different forms in different persons. It may be known, 

 for instance, as fever in one, pneumonia in another, 

 diphtheria in a third, cholera or diarrhoea in a fourth, 

 and so on. But the differences which give . rise to the 

 necessity for using such names are merely details. There 

 is, in truth, but one disease. It develops in various 

 ways. It produces different symptoms, all of which 

 are dependent upon conditions, some of which may 

 readily be defined. But, in the first instance, disease is 

 uniform. And just as there is actually but one disease, 

 so there is but one cause of disease, and that may be 



