Preventable Diseases

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Preventable Diseases, by Woods Hutchinson

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Title: Preventable Diseases
Author: Woods Hutchinson
Release Date: June 29, 2007 [EBook #21965]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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PREVENTABLE DISEASES
BY
WOODS HUTCHINSON, A.M., M.D.
Author of "Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology," "Instinct and Health," etc., etc. Clinical Professor of Medicine, New York Polyclinic, late Lecturer in Comparative Pathology, London Medical Graduates College and University of Buffalo
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908 AND 1909, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY WOODS HUTCHINSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published November 1909
FIFTH IMPRESSION
* * * * *
By Woods Hutchinson
THE CONQUEST OF CONSUMPTION. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00 net. Postage extra.
PREVENTABLE DISEASES. 12mo, $1.50 net. Postage 13 cents.
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK
* * * * *
CONTENTS
I. The Body-Republic and its Defense 1
II. Our Legacy of Health: the Power of Heredity in the Prevention of Disease 31
III. The Physiognomy of Disease: what a Doctor can tell from Appearances 55
IV. Colds and how to catch Them 83
V. Adenoids, or Mouth-Breathing: their Cause and their Consequences 103
VI. Tuberculosis, a Scotched Snake. I 123
VII. Tuberculosis, a Scotched Snake. II 140
VIII. The Unchecked Great Scourge: Pneumonia 174
IX. The Natural History of Typhoid Fever 198
X. Diphtheria: the Modern Moloch 222
XI. The Herods of Our Day: Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Whooping-Cough 243
XII. Appendicitis, or Nature's Remnant Sale 267
XIII. Malaria: the Pestilence that walketh in Darkness; the greatest Foe of the Pioneer 289
XIV. Rheumatism: what it Is, and particularly what it Isn't 311
XV. Germ-Foes that follow the Knife, or Death under the Finger-Nail 331
XVI. Cancer, or Treason in the Body-State 350
XVII. Headache: the most useful Pain in the World 367
XVIII. Nerves and Nervousness 387
XIX. Mental Influence in Disease, or how the Mind affects the Body 411
Index 439

PREVENTABLE DISEASES
CHAPTER I
THE BODY-REPUBLIC AND ITS DEFENSE
The human body as a mechanism is far from perfect. It can be beaten or surpassed at almost every point by some product of the machine-shop or some animal. It does almost nothing perfectly or with absolute precision. As Huxley most unexpectedly remarked a score of years ago, "If a manufacturer of optical instruments were to hand us for laboratory use an instrument so full of defects and imperfections as the human eye, we should promptly decline to accept it and return it to him. But," as he went on to say, "while the eye is inaccurate as a microscope, imperfect as a telescope, crude as a photographic camera, it is all of these in one." In other words, like the body, while it does nothing accurately and perfectly, it does a dozen different things well enough for practical purposes. It has the crowning merit, which overbalances all these minor defects, of being able to adapt itself to almost every conceivable change of circumstances.
This is the keynote of the surviving power of the human species. It is not enough that the body should be prepared to do good work under ordinary conditions, but it must be capable, if needs be, of meeting extraordinary ones. It is not enough for the body to be able to take care of itself, and preserve a fair degree of efficiency in health, under what might be termed favorable or average circumstances, but it must also be prepared to protect itself and regain its balance in disease.
The human automobile in its million-year endurance-run has had to learn to become self-repairing; and well has it learned its lesson. Not only, in the language of the old saw, is there "a remedy for every evil under the sun," but in at least eight cases out of ten that remedy will be found within the body itself. Generations ago this self-balancing, self-repairing power was recognized by the more thoughtful fathers in medicine and even dignified by a name in their pompous Latinity--the vis medicatrix natur?, the healing power of nature.
In the new conception of disease, our drugs, our tonics, our prescriptions and treatments, are simply means of rousing this force into activity, assisting its operations, or removing obstacles in its way. This remedial power does not imply any gift of prophecy on nature's part, nor is it proof of design, or beneficent intention. It is rather one of those blind reactions to certain stimuli, tending to restore the balance of the organism, much as that interesting, new scientific