ON METAMORPHISM 471 



perfection of original formation and preservation of healthy 

 characteristics the vital powers, as exercised by the 

 systemic and sympathetic nervatures, succumbing seriatim 

 to the cumulative influence of chemico-physiological or 

 pathological change and negation. 



In this process of involutionary metamorphosis we may 

 be prepared to find the beginning of many diseases due to 

 spontaneous failure of the vital powers to resist the natural 

 tendency to degeneration arid decay, intensified, it may be, 

 by conditions of life destructive of health operating along 

 physiological, chemical, bacteriological and other lines, and 

 dragging the unfortunate subject, it may be, into premature 

 age and death. 



It would not be too much to say, in connection with 

 these views, that such a disease as cancer may be proved 

 to have its origin in the pathological, and not in the 

 physiological, disposal of structures, whose office and 

 presence in the system are no longer possible, and whose 

 removal, therefore, has become a functional necessity and 

 a condition of health to that economy ; and that the 

 proneness to attack by that disease of organs, whose 

 functional role is curtailed or ended, has herein the ex- 

 planation of its probable etiology and pathology. The 

 necessary liability to pathological change of these structures, 

 and their lessened power of resistance to the incidence and 

 influence of morbid agencies, render them at all times a 

 source of danger, amid the tumult and friction and con- 

 cussions of life, to their possessors, and hence, in dealing 

 with affections of such a character, we have thus provided 

 a point of view from which to regard them which may be 

 fruitful both of diagnostic and practical results. Thus 

 par excellence we observe that the female suffers from 

 this disease, to a greater extent than the male, and just in 

 connection with organs and structures whose functions 

 are early closed and ended, viz. the mammary glands and 

 the uterus and appendages, whose involutionary meta- 

 morphosis is so wholesale and complete as to outrun, in 

 many cases, the absorptive and eliminatory powers possessed 

 by an adynamic and enfeebled organism, and, hence, to 

 leave a structural residuum peculiarly prone to become 

 the seat of disease and pathological change ; in this 



