26 CLASSIFICATION OF DISEASE. 



purposes, and for the attainment of certain definite ends, it is 

 easily understood that, as a means to the accompHshment of 

 these ends, this mere classification will vary in accordance with 

 the dissimilarity or variety of the ultimate object in view. 

 The greater number of the systems of classification adopted 

 are artificial. Some few, indeed, make an approach to what 

 may with some consistency be regarded as natural ; in these 

 there is an attempt to bring together diseases wdiich have 

 natural relations or affinities with each other. 



It is scarcely our province, nor is it probable that a detailed 

 account of the various principles upon which classifications of 

 disease have been made will to us in our present study be 

 fraught with much benefit. Still we may notice, as showing 

 the extent of ground and the diversity of its character which 

 has been travelled over in formulating these different classifica- 

 tions, that they have been based upon — 



{a) Nature and ascertained, or siq^posed, causes of disease ; 



(6) Tlie pathological conditions accompanying disease ; 



(c) Tlie symptoms or characteristic plienomenco resulting 

 from the morbid condition ; 



[d) From a consideration of the general nature and locality 

 of the diseased conditions ; and many others. 



If it be true what has been said with respect to human 

 medicine, that the time has not yet come for the formulating 

 of a classification of diseases on a basis comprehensive enough, 

 having the details of its plan to agree in every respect with 

 the facts as they exist in nature, simply because the material 

 does not exist, " and that attempts to make so-called natural 

 systems of arrangement must end in disappointment, on 

 account of the uncertain and fluctuating data on which they 

 must be based " — if this be true as respects that grand division 

 of medical science, compared with which our special province 

 is but a child of yesterday as regards its association with 

 science and liberal knowledge, we need scarcely wonder that 

 we are compelled to confess, nor need we be ashamed to do so, 

 that veterinary nosology is yet in an infantile state, and that 

 the classification of the diseases of animals is not only difficult 

 but defective and imperfectly understood. While it is quite 

 evident that until pathologies, human and veterinary, are cul- 

 tivated side by side in their true and reciprocal bearing, no 



