258 THEORY OF DISEASE. 



action of oxygen is feebler than in the healthy 

 state. But this resistance only ceases entirely when 

 death takes place. By the artificial diminution of 

 resistance in another part, the resistance in the dis- 

 eased organ is not indeed directly strengthened ; but 

 the chemical action (the cause of the change of 

 matter) is diminished in the diseased part, being di- 

 rected to another part, where the physician has suc- 

 ceeded in producing a still more feeble resistance 

 to the change of matter (to the action of oxygen). 



A complete cure of the original disease occurs, 

 when external action and resistance, in the diseased 

 part, are brought into equilibrium. Health and the 

 restoration of the diseased tissue to its original con- 

 dition follow, \vhen we are able so far to weaken 

 the disturbing action of oxygen, by any means, that 

 it becomes inferior to the resistance offered by the 

 vital force, which, although enfeebled, has never 

 ceased to act ; for this proportion between these 

 causes of change is the uniform and necessary con- 

 dition of increase of mass in .the living organism. 



In cases of a different kind, where artificial ex- 

 ternal disturbance produces no effect, the physician 

 adopts other indirect methods to exalt the resist- 

 ance offered by the vital force. These methods, the 

 result of ages of experience, are such, that the most 

 perfect theory could hardly have pointed them out 

 more acutely or more justly than has been done 

 by the observation of sagacious practitioners. He 

 diminishes, by blood-letting, the number of the 



