THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 1 73 



liarity of S which renders it apt to be thrown into morbid 

 action by a specific E, an integral part of the affection, is 

 an open question, for such a proceeding rather suggests that 

 disease is a one-sided process, in which S alone takes part 

 — that the individual actually contains , within himself the 

 slumbering entity. There is no objection whatever to our thus 

 regarding disease, provided we bear the fact clearly in mind 

 that disease is a two-sided process, but we must then be 

 prepared to admit that every man contains within himself an 

 integral part of every disease to which his flesh is heir, be it 

 tubercle, measles, fractured skull, flea-bite, or what notj that 

 is to say, each of us contains an integral part of fractured skull, 

 for instance, seeing that we alike suffer therefrom if we do but 

 expose ourselves to the necessary E. Most of us, too, contain 

 an integral part of the specific fevers, for do we not respond to 

 the noxious action of the several parasites which cause these 

 diseases ? and there are few who do not contain an integral 

 part of " flea-bite.'' Indeed, it is not necessary to individualize 

 the diseases which on this view slumber potentially before we 

 actually suffer from them, seeing that they comprise, as just now 

 stated, every disease which it is possible for man to contract. 



When the tendency to a particular disease is very strong — S s 

 for example, or S 10 (in which case it bursts out spontaneously) — 

 there is certainly a great inclination to regard the individual as 

 containing within himself a part of the disease before he actually 

 suffers from it, but we cannot sharply divide individuals into the 

 predisposed and the non-predisposed — into the tubercular and 

 the non-tubercular, for example — for we meet with every shade of 

 predisposition, from complete immunity, in some diseases at all 

 events ( = S ) to impossible escape (S 10 ). Probably, no individual 

 is absolutely impregnable to tubercle. Hilton Fagge is very 

 explicit on this point. "Probably," he says, "there is no 

 family in which the consumptive tendency is so strong that it 

 could not be kept in abeyance by hygienic precautions if they 

 were thoroughly and vigorously carried out ; and, on the other 

 hand, there are very few families (if any) in which the disease 

 may not show itself in such members of it as systematically 

 neglect their health, or are exposed year after year to un- 

 favourable circumstances." 



