HUMORAL PATHOLOGY. 3i 



Nature. — From the earliest times medical philosophers 

 have been engaged in investigating the essence or intimate 

 nature of disease : whether the fluids were primarily affected; 

 or whether the solids, to their exclusion, enjoyed this sad 

 prerogative. This variety of opinion has given rise to the 

 different medical doctrines. Having formed our opinion on 

 its seat, we proceed to investigate the nature of the disease.-' 

 This is a subject veiled in obscurity, and for that reason has 

 furnished matter for many a beautiful theory. The powers 

 that control those actions whose combination constitute all 

 we know of life, are the same that operate to the production 

 of disease : so long as their functions are executed with 

 their accustomed regularity, we say the animal is in health ; 

 but whenever any manifest disturbance happens, we say that 

 disease is present. 



The same power which builds the body up, is continually 

 renewing every part, and furnishes all the secretions. How 

 they effect all this is to us a mystery. Since, therefore, we 

 have no clue to these vital actions, and can entertain very 

 imperfect notions of them, we must necessarily be imperfectly 

 informed of the mode in which disease proceeds. We must 

 be content with observing the operations of disease as they 

 present themselves to our notice ; and with rioting the con- 

 sequences to which they give rise, in order that we may 

 be advised of their tendencies, and regulate our remedial 

 measures to ameliorate them. 



HUMORAL PATHOLOGY. 



The father of medicine, Hippocrates, taught that diseases 

 had their origin in the humours of the body. These humours 

 were the blood, the phlegm, the bile, and the black bile. 

 Diseases arose from lack or superabundance of these ; the 

 establishment of their equilibrium constituted health. He 

 ascribed three periods to maladies : the crudity, the coction, 

 and the crisis or evacuation. In crudity, the morbific 

 element preserved its form, and resisted nature ; in coction, 

 if these morbific forces or powers were not weakened, death 



