Organic Dependence and Disease : 



T 



Their Origin and Significance. 



INTEODUCTION 



HE purpose of this essay is to set forth a basis of 

 fact and reasonable inference bearing on the com- 

 prehension of the control which governs the histor- 

 ical origin of dependent and abnormal conditions in the liv- 

 ing world. 



The facts and their interpretations, together with their 

 higher intimations as here presented, are based upon pale- 

 ontological knowledge, that is to say, biological knowledge 

 with the added element of unlimited time through which the 

 life factors have worked. These are prime factors; they 

 together remove our subject and its conclusions from the 

 field of purely modern biology. 



The knowledge we have little by little acquired in the spe- 

 cial field indicated by our title does not as yet make a great 

 sheaf and it is not likely that the facts, in spite of their pro- 

 found interest to us, can have any immediate value in the 

 application of remedial measures in the correction of ab- 

 normal physiology. This statement is, however, not made 

 without some reserve; a real clue to the inception of any 

 abnormal physiology in nature must lead to interpretations 

 of wide moment. 



For a good many years the writer has endeavored to 

 gather together from the earliest assemblages of life on the 

 earth as preserved in the ancient rocks, such organic re- 

 mains as might shed light, not primarily on the introduc- 

 tion of disease, as we loosely employ that term, but upon 



