84 PHYSIC 



morbid occurrence, be necessarily confronted with only 

 the material remains of the catastrophe on which to expend 

 our pathological acumen and to elicit the nature of the 

 disease process the dynamic factor in that process having 

 disappeared, as the electric discharge does in the thunder- 

 bolt, which is afterwards only known by the wreckage it 

 leaves behind. Remembering this, it will necessarily be 

 found that microscope and crucible have their limitations 

 as instruments of discovery, and that they require to be 

 strengthened, supplemented, and corrected by a ceaseless 

 appeal to physiological aid and clinical support, in order 

 that the factors of morbidity may be discovered and seen 

 at work, their respective powers for evil appreciated, 

 restrained, and neutralised, and their continuance pre- 

 vented. 



In accomplishing this, it will be perceived that the prin- 

 cipal partner in the combination of disease factors must be 

 the dynamic, which is at once the arranger and admini- 

 strator of the vital business affairs, so to speak, in a work 

 in which the capital of the sleeping partner becomes the 

 subject of the firm's operations, and which, if prodigally 

 used, in time will literally fail. 



In this work outside influences, such as science, may, if 

 called upon to indicate and supply, do something to pre- 

 vent the inevitable collapse, which must overtake the 

 working of all such firms by the adoption of means to 

 correlate the working and conciliate the amour propre of 

 the partners, so as to give a fresh start, and literally a ' ' new 

 lease of life " to the firm, which here signifies the restora- 

 tion of a diseased body to a state of health. In accom- 

 plishing such a great work, our scientific efforts must be 

 dominated by a strict adherence to indications, based on as 

 true a knowledge of nature's ways as can be obtained from 

 the strictest scrutiny and the use of not only the keenest 

 observation and best directed experiment, but the most 

 liberal application of " common sense." If it be found 

 that the material, or sleeping partner, has suffered in what 

 he has contributed to the firm's work, by shrinkage, or 

 depreciation of capital, the restoration of that capital to 

 its original proportions and quantity must be sought for 

 by every legitimate means, and if the quest be successful, 



