CHAPTER VIII 



ON HABIT, SYMPTOMS, AND DISEASE x 



(1911) 



It has struck me that it might be serviceable to take up the 

 subject of habit in its relationship to disease : to call attention 

 to the probability that much commonly regarded as symptomatic 

 of functional, not to say anatomical, disturbance may, after 

 all, have no serious anatomical basis, but be one or another 

 manifestation of habit, and, therefore, wholly curable provided 

 the habit can be interrupted ; and to indicate how, nevertheless, 

 habit sufficiently long continued may well induce anatomical 

 change, from which stage onward cure can be only relative. 



Placed thus on paper, there is nothing new in my text. These 

 are truisms which we all must have had impressed upon us in 

 the course of our work, now vaguely, now more clearly. The 

 whole group of tics and hysterical manifestations is immediately 

 called to mind, these affording examples of both stages. But 

 what I want to do is to point out that the nervous system is not 

 alone involved, and that the tissues generally are creatures of 

 habit ; further, to investigate the principles underlying habit 

 phenomena and the anatomical or histological outcomes of the 

 same. 



This matter was brought to my attention years ago in con- 

 nexion with a case of incipient pulmonary tuberculosis. The 

 patient had, shortly after child-birth, gone rather rapidly down- 

 hill, giving the old story of profuse lactation, loss of strength, 

 intractable cold with profuse expectoration, and afternoon rise 

 of temperature. Everything pointed to tuberculosis, and, what 



1 An address delivered before the Medical Research Club at the University 

 of Pittsburgh, April 6, 1911. Reprinted from International Clinics. 



235 



