THE CAUSE OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE. 22$ 



to be worshipped by devout physicians and 

 laity. 



Virchow, following up the process of dis- 

 ease as far as possible, came at last upon the 

 diseased cells. Here he too fell into a singular 

 error. He set up the diseased cell as the es- 

 sence of disease, thereby substituting another 

 entity for the one he had just thrown down. 

 It was a weak place in the cellular pathology 

 and one which Virchow's opponents were of 

 course quick to attack, without, however, giv- 

 ing due consideration to one point in his theory, 

 namely, that he did not lose sight of the dis- 

 ease process in his contemplation of the dis- 

 eased cells as the microscopic disease entities. 

 He rightly conjectured that the something that 

 appeared as disease must be something that 

 was already preformed in the normal organism. 

 As the cause is essential to its effect, so the 

 production of disease requires an inward pre- 

 disposition. Lotze had already expressed 

 himself in a similar way. 



In regard to the normal processes of life the 

 same principle had been established for a long 

 time through the investigations of the German 

 physiologists Haller, Reil and Johannes Miiller. 

 Whatever be the outside forces that act, the 

 eye perceives only light, and the ear only sound; 

 the glands simply secrete and the muscles con- 



