16 THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 



structure. If the constructive surgeon does this, he 

 never imagines he has RESTORED; the surgically- 

 produced tooth, or eye, or palate, or limb, are all 

 known as artificial or false ; so we speak of a false 

 tooth, false eye, false palate, false limb. 



The same holds good in medicine, if any foreign 

 element becomes a permanent portion of the body's 

 structure; only there is this most tremendous diffe- 

 rence : In such surgery, we know where the foreign 

 portion is located, and we have a known advantage in 

 improved appearance, or improved speaking, or chew- 

 ing, or locomotion. But if the medicine does not 

 entirely pass away, what then ? We have artificiality 

 SOMEWHERE OR OTHER. Who knows where ? With 

 what results ? This last question we can answer only 

 too well. DANGEROUS artificiality, in the intimate 

 structure of brain, or heart, or lungs, or other vital 

 organs, resulting in the most incurable forms of 

 disease. 



If we attend to the full meaning of the teachings 

 of eminent writers on medical jurisprudence, to the 

 medical evidence in trials for poisoning,* as well as 

 to the experience of the vast army of medical prac- 

 titioners, in any standard summary, f we shall find a 

 complete agreement upon one point. We may express 



* For instance, Dr. Palmer's case, and recently the Maybrick 

 trial. 



t See Dr. Eawdon Macnamara's " Medicines : their uses and 

 modes of administration," seventh edit. (p. 858). " Habit 

 powerfully influences the dose we should direct." By habit, the 

 writer clearly means habit of taking the same or similar medicine, 

 as he gives a remarkable instance of " the combined influence of 

 disease and habit, in establishing a tolerance of otherwise potent 

 medicines," in a case related by Zeviani, of a woman named 



