WILL HE RECOVER? xxix 



example, a child has a severe fright, and a week or so after suffers from St. Vitus's 

 dance or becomes epileptic. Here the disease is not dependent on the entrance of 

 any poison into the body, as is probably the case in most of the fevers, but neverthe- 

 less there is a period of incubation. Then again, we often speak of the " stage 

 of invasion " and " stage of decline " of a rash. We do not know that these 

 terms have any particular value, but they are constantly employed, and are often 

 convenient. Certain morbid conditions are often left behind after an illness, and 

 these are usually spoken of as the " sequelae " for instance, the occurrence of Blight's 

 disease after scarlet-fever is regarded as a sequela, and not as a part of the original 

 disease, because it is not of constant occurrence. Then again, by " complications " 

 we mean such conditions as are liable to arise during the progress of an illness, but 

 do not usually form a part of its course. For instance, a man has acute rheumatism. 

 Has he any complications 1 you ask. Yes, pericarditis, or inflammation of the sac in 

 which the heart is contained. 



When the doctor is called in to any case of illness, one of the first questions he is 

 asked is, " Is it serious 1 Is there any danger T In some cases he is enabled to 

 say at once that humanly speaking there is no danger, whilst in others he is bound 

 to admit that it is impossible for him to give a positive opinion. Our power of 

 foretelling the termination of any particular attack of illness is small. Medicine is 

 not an exact science, and Hie is too subtle for us to know or measure all its possible 

 contingencies. We know that certain maladies rarely endanger life, whilst from 

 others perfect recovery is the exception. We know that the mortality in certain 

 diseases is very much higher than in others, but this information will not enable 

 us to foretell positively the termination in any individual case. We may describe 

 the probabilities of any given disease, and may even express them numerically, and 

 use them as a basis for accepting or rejecting lives at insurance offices, but we are, 

 after all, dealing only with doubts, and not with certainties. Our knowledge of the 

 results of disease, as applied to masses of people, is marvellously accurate, but as 

 applied to individuals it is woefully small. We know how many people will die of 

 bronchitis, and how many of consumption next year, and we even know how many 

 will be killed by being run over in the streets, and how many will commit suicide 

 by throwing themselves in front of express trains, but if we are called in to two 

 people of the same age on the same day, who are stricken down with typhoid fever, 

 we cannot tell whether one, or both, or neither will die. We can fix the probable 

 duration of certain diseases pretty accurately, but with regard to others our know- 

 ledge is infinitely small. We know approximately the duration of shingles, of 

 small-pox, of typhoid and scarlet fevers, and also of such maladies as consumption 

 and cancer of the stomach, but with regard to many chronic affections, such as rheu- 

 matism and sciatica, our knowledge is much less accurate, and of less practical utility. 

 An acute disease may prove fatal, or it may terminate in recovery, or it may become 

 chronic. Rheumatic fever affords a good example of an acute disease which some- 

 times becomes chronic. In certain cases the fever completely subsides in due course, 

 but leaves the joints swollen and painful for weeks, or even months. Some acute 

 diseases, such as scarlet fever and measles, never become chronic. 



Diseases have been divided into two groups preventible and non-preveiitible> 



