2 24 THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE. 



the most approved fashion, and the mother be most care- 

 fully sheltered, during the period of gestation, from every 

 possible form of improper influence. "Wherefore, I am com- 

 pelled to confute the assertion of Mr. Lawson Tait — namely, 

 that disease did not exist in wild ancestral man, but first crept 

 in upon him with the advent of civilization. 



The belief that disease results solely from the abuse of 

 natural laws has been held by many. John Hunter, amongst 

 others, taught this view. C. B. Sutton, after speaking about 

 the "easy" working of the body, observes : " But we, in our 

 ignorance, hinder the working, and bring about uneasiness, 

 disease, incapacity — and that is the origin of pain." If the 

 writer here means that ignorance is the sole and essential 

 origin of pain, his statement can only be deemed correct 

 in a limited sense. Pain, undoubtedly, often results from 

 ignorance — in a sense, indeed, it always does — since we 

 might, with supreme knowledge, prevent it. But in this 

 sense an earthquake is equally the result of " ignorance." 

 Also, the pain suffered by the lower animals. But using 

 the term in the limited sense which the author is evidently 

 attaching to it, ignorance cannot be said to be the origin of 

 pain. 



It is necessary to bear in mind that the capacity for 

 pain is a physiological attribute : without it no sentient being 

 — at all events, no such sentient being as a vertebrate 

 animal — could exist. I speak not of the invertebrata, 

 since of their capacities for sensation we know little or 

 nothing. I say the capacity for pain is physiological ; for if 

 an individual were not apprised of an injurious agent by the 

 pain which it causes, he would suffer something more serious 

 than pain — total destruction. Although pain in certain in- 

 stances serves no beneficial purpose, as in cancer, I cannot, 

 therefore, doubt that it is in the main a physiological capacity ; 

 and I protest against our speaking of it as a very unpleasant 

 and disagreeable result of ignorance, when it is a highly 

 beneficial and essentially physiological capacity, which affords 

 us very real and effective knowledge ; for without it we 

 should not in many instances knoio of the evil residing in 

 the pain-producing object. There can be no doubt that the 



