2 IiitroducfioiL 



adjustments; for example, after marching there may be a brief 

 elevation of body temperature even to fever heat. In considering a 

 body corpulent from fat deposit, one may be at a loss to indicate 

 whether the corpulence is but a normal condition, or whether a 

 really morbid state of obesity has commenced ; and, at least in the 

 popular mind, intoxication from alcohol is certainly not to be con- 

 sidered as a disease although in the stricter interpretation we are 

 forced to look upon it as a departure from the state of health. 



Besides the term Disease, therefore, general convenience of 

 speech requires the use of such terms as Sickness, Indisposition, 

 Feeble Health, Defect, Fault or Damage, and limits the employ- 

 ment of "disease"' to such conditions in which the structural and 

 functional disturbances go so far as to hinder the more important 

 vital processes, to cause pain and to impair in an essential manner 

 the vital phenomena of the organism as a whole. By the expressions 

 "feeble health," "debility" (imbeciUitas) is to be understood a 

 diminished power of bodily resistance to pathogenic influences ; 

 "sickness" or "indisposition" is used when there is a subjective 

 feeling of impaired health and where but minor grades of disease 

 actually exist. "Defects," "damages" and "faults" are conditions in 

 which certain parts of the body appear structurally abnormal and 

 do not properly functionate ; conditions in which the derangements 

 have come to a definite standstill, and only under special conditions 

 are likely to give rise to further morbid manifestations. Should 

 these be congenital, arising in the period of foetal life, they are 

 spoken of as Malformations, Congenital Defects, Developmental 

 Faults, Vitia Congenita; if acquired after birth as sequels of dis- 

 ease (wholly or partly removed), or if the results of mechanical in- 

 fluences, as Acquired Deformities, Mutilations, or Vitia Acquisita. 



In its proper meaning the term Disease has no reference to any 

 entity or thing, but to more or less complicated processes and con- 

 ditions which are evidences of disturbances of the physiological 

 constitution and activity of the body ; this applying to the individual 

 cells as well as to the whole group of cells making up the organism. 

 Diseases are therefore to be distinguished as diseases of the cells 

 or structural elements of the organs, as diseases of the tissues, 

 of organs, of systems, and of the individual or organism as a whole. 

 [Inasmuch as life is but an expression of a harmony of structural 

 and functional relation between the cellular constituents of the body 

 among themselves and of the maintenance of efficient adaptability to 

 the bodilv environment, disease should be thought of as being made 



