CURING BY COMBATING THE CAUSE. 29! 



sary than when it is a question of killing para- 

 sites in the body. If a remedy acts etiologic- 

 ally, however, and attacks the energetical 

 relations obtaining between parasite and host, 

 then it must act upon all phases and the 

 quantity must vary only according to those 

 factors which are manifested externally as 

 symptoms. That is the necessary consequence 

 of a uniform conception of the continuity of 

 causes. 



Virchow, in the beginning of his pioneering 

 activity, held another conception. He regarded 

 the single phases of the disease as " essences," 

 considering them from the one-sided point of 

 view of the diseased cells, and held the opinion 

 that the separate phases and symptoms of the 

 disease must be treated quite differently. It 

 is certainly interesting that Henle, Virchow's 

 greatest opponent in etiology and co-creator of 

 the " rational " therapeutics, and who, again in 

 opposition to Virchow, emphasized particularly 

 the physiological factors involved, arrived at 

 the same symptomatological position as con- 

 cerns the treatment of disease. Virchow him- 

 self has never in recent times taken an op- 

 portunity to express himself unambiguously 

 on this point, and while his criticism of newly- 

 discovered phenomena and of tendencies in 

 science has been often dogmatic and frequently 



