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CHAPTER V. 



Theory of Fever. 



" I have always thought it a greater happiness to discover a 

 certain method of curing the slightest disease, than to accumulate 

 the largest fortune." SYDENHAM. 



BUT how is it possible to arrive at a certain 

 method of curing even the slightest disease, with- 

 out knowing the cause of vital action during 

 health, which consists in the natural and plea- 

 surable exercise of all the functions ? And if it be 

 true, that " no genuine physiological principle 

 has ever yet been discovered," how is it possible 

 that pathologists should explain the phenomena 

 of disease, which literally implies pain, or the 

 absence of ease, and is always the result of some 

 departure from the natural state of the functions ? 

 Such is the simplicity which pervades the infi- 

 nitely diversified operations of nature, that a 

 complete knowledge of any one disease would 

 afford a key by which to unfold the rationale of 

 all the rest. 



For example, it may be laid down as an axiom, 

 that fever or inflammation, whether general or 

 local, is an essential condition of all diseases, except 

 in those cases in which the reaction is not sufficient 



