24 PATHOLOGY. 



cation. Arrange tliem in due order, reduce them into a sentence, 

 and they convey a meaning. The sentence is a sign or expression 

 of something which is thus revealed. Symptoms become signs 

 when their import can be interpreted." — (Sir Thos. Watson.) 



According to the arrangement of Eeynolds, symptoms are to 

 be considered as parts of a disease, for he says — " So long as 

 disease was regarded as some material put into, added to, or 

 engrafted upon the body, the words symptom or sign described 

 the means by which we might recognise the presence of such a 

 material ; but when we define disease as being the sum of 

 changes in function and structure presented by the living being, 

 the words symptom and sign describe only those parts of the 

 disease which are appreciable to the observer's senses. We call 

 a disease by a particular name, which may express its primary 

 or most important fact, but we cannot separate this one fact from 

 others, as exhibited by the symptoms, but must regard them as 

 integral parts of the malady. Thus the different phenomena 

 of pneumonia, the cough, lung-sounds, respirations, &c., are as 

 much parts of the disease as are the structural changes in the 

 lung. We cannot imagine the existence of symptoms without 

 disease, and vice versa." I must, however, differ from the above- 

 named writer, as I am strongly convinced that when symptoms 

 are thus arranged they are apt to be therapeutically looked upon 

 with too much significance, and thus induce the practitioner to 

 pursue a course of treatment more calculated to modify them 

 than to remove their causes. 



Symptoms are local or general, according to whether they are 

 confined to the diseased part, or affect, more or less, the whole 

 system ; idiopathic, when directly proceeding from the disease ; 

 sympathetic or secondary, when arising from those produced by 

 the primary disease, or from secondary disorder ; premonitory 

 or precursory, when they precede the full development of disease, 

 generally resulting from the first operation of its cause, such as 

 signs precursory to an inflammation ; commemorative, when 

 developed in the previous history of the disease. Again, 

 symptoms and signs are further divided into diagnostic, prog- 

 nostic, and therapeutic, when they are specially applicable to 

 the distinction, the determination of the event, and the sug- 

 gestion of the treatment of the disease ; into objective, when they 

 present themselves to the scrutiny of the practitioner ; and these 



