172 



PRESENCE OF GERMS 



thereby influencing the nutrition of the part. In 

 this way a relaxed state of the arterial walls and a 

 congested state of capillary vessels might be induced, 

 or already existing, might be increased. It is this 

 low and but too often ill-defined weak state of health, 

 which often persists for some weeks before the attack 

 of contagious disease occurs, that we should endea- 

 vour to detect, and at once treat. Nay, it is almost 

 certain that every serious acute disease dangerous to 

 life to which we are subject is preceded by a condi- 

 tion of system which in many particulars is a departure 

 from health. If this can be altered, the liability to 

 the supervention of the acute attack no longer exists. 

 It is in the direction of anticipating the occurrence of 

 actual serious well-marked disease that those most 

 earnest in advancing medicine may reasonably hope 

 to do useful work. And it seems certain that the 

 more minutely we investigate, the more likely shall 

 we be to learn how to discover and to appreciate that 

 slight departure from the healthy state which precedes, 

 and often by some considerable time, the development 

 of many of the most serious and most fatal maladies. 

 Were our knowledge greater we might perhaps in 

 many instances succeed in warding off altogether the 

 threatened invasion of disease. 



Minute investigation in connexion with disease, 

 has been most unwisely discouraged, by purely scien- 

 tific men on the one hand, and by those who confine 

 themselves to their practical medical duties on the 



