Yellow fever and its homoeopathic treatment / by Wm. H. Holcombe.

  • Holcombe, William H. (William Henry), 1825-1893.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Yellow fever and its homoeopathic treatment / by Wm. H. Holcombe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    ferred to the chemical and physical changes in the blood, its stasis in, and exudation from the capillary vessels. III. PATHOLOGY. Pathology in its widest sense is the interpretation of morbid phenomena. The only key to its secrets will he a perfected physiology, for pathological process, in Henle's philoso- phic definition, is the manifestation of the typical or physio- logical forces under abnormal conditions. The repair of in- juries is not a peculiar measure adopted by some vis medi- catrix in cases of emergency, but the common and ordinary nutrition of the part taking place under unusual circumstances. Disease is not an entity introduced from without and preying upon the living tissues—nor does it alone consist in the re- action of the vital forces against the disturbing cause. It is the abnormal action of the vital force itself, characterized by stimulation, depression, perversion, or other terms. This principle must be kept constantly in view when we survey the various phenomena of disease with the hope of establishing a chain of relationship between them, which shall illustrate and simplify our conceptions of the morbid process. From this point of view, we will endeavor to analyze and reduce to something like systematic order, the confused mass of symp- toms which I have here brought together, lie would be a bold man who should pretend, with our present limited know- ledge, to construct a satisfactory pathology of yellow-fever. Speculation, however, upon such an important subject is not idle or worthless, even if it be fruitful of nothing but sugges- tions. Fact and theory are the body and soul of science, arid it has ever been the highest aim of philosophy to make them blend into harmonious life and beauty. There are three classes of pathologists named—according to the view they take of the point and mode of the morbific in- vasion—solidistSy humoralists, and neuropathists. The first be- lieve diseases to be of local origin, arising primarily from some impression made on the parenchyma of the organs. The school may almost be said to be extinct, but it bequeathed us the valuable fact that local determinations and changes occur in almost all general and continued diseases. The humoral-