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TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION BY TONICS. 
TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION BY TONICS. 
{Expounded by F. C. Skey, F.R.S., in his work “ On the 
Prevalent Treatment of Disease.) 
“ If we take a general and impartial survey of the multi- 
form diseases that, in the exercise of our duties as members 
of our high profession, we profess to control by the agency 
of medical science, there are probably few that are not more 
or less the product of derangement in the condition of either 
the vascular or nervous system, or of both, founded on a basis 
of weakness. If the supply derived from the heart and from 
the nervous centres be disturbed, or be even deficient, if the 
harmony between these two functions be deranged, disease is 
the result. 
“ I presume it to be an infalible law of nature, that health 
and strength are harmonious , co-existent , and naturally dependent ; 
that health and weakness, strength and disease, are incom- 
patibilities ; that as health and disease are also incompatible, 
so the most efficient principles of treatment that medical 
science could adopt is one which would most effectually build 
up, nourish, and invigorate the vital powers as an antidote 
to the disease ; to oppose and to thwart the antagonism of 
debility by the administration of such means as give tone and 
vigour, and health and strength, to the system. This ought 
to be the broad basis of medical treatment throughout the 
whole range of disease, the true philosophy of medical science. 
We talk of treating disease, when, in truth, we treat but its 
symptoms. We contend against effects, leaving causes un- 
touched. 
“Take a familiar illustration. Select two healthy men of 
the same age and constitution. Take twenty ounces of blood 
from one of them. Subject them both to the atmosphere of 
a room impregnated with fever or other contagious disease. 
Which of these men is the more susceptible of infection ? 
And why ? Because the loss of blood has really opened the 
portals to disease. His circulation is accelerated by loss of 
blood — but most of all, the tone of his nervous system is 
shaken. Parallel and corroboratory of this acknowledged 
truth is an old but solid maxim in medicine, not to approach 
a contaminated atmosphere w ith an empty stomach. Sw ; allow 
a stimulant, and you will avert fever or other disease. 
“And wdll not the same reasoning apply to almost every 
form of deviation from health? If I select fever, may I not 
