Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; tr., with a preface and new chapters added, by Thomas Oliver.

  • Bouchard, Ch. (Charles), 1837-1915.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on auto-intoxication in disease, or, Self-poisoning of the individual / by Ch. Bouchard ; tr., with a preface and new chapters added, by Thomas Oliver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    modern days, so far as medicine is concerned, is the high place we assign to the study of the origin of diseases. If the causes are innumerable, you know that the processes following those which induce disease can be relegated to four types. These four chief pathogenic processes are: (1) primary elementary dystrophies, (2) nerve reactions, (3) disturbances antecedent to nutrition, and (4) infection. The first of these processes is the most simple, but it is the least studied, and I may add that it is almost completely un- known. It is that which arises from the vital activity of cells, and is directly brought under our notice by some cause, physical, mechanical, or chemical; from the lightning-stroke to the in- toxications, or by traumatism. If one neglects more than is necessary the study of that simple process, it is because very often it is complicated with effects of a local character, vascular or otherwise, which are the reflex result of nervous requirements. We have known for a very long time the important part played by the nervous system as an intermediary in the produc- tion of disease. Have we exaggerated it, or have we accorded to the reflexes a pathogenic influence greater than that which they have in reality? When they are set in operation in a per- son in good health they only rarely cause the development of the malady properly called; their role is often to bring about fleeting indispositions or troubles, for a longer or shorter period, to the extent of realizing predisposition or the morbid oppor- tunity. You know that those pathogenic influences are peripheral or central. It is in their action upon the cutaneous nerve endings that cold and moisture interpose as a cause of disease; it is by their direct action upon nerve centers that disorders of the af- fections, changes of disposition, mental fatigue, and so many other psychical disturbances frequently bring about deteriorated health. Generally speaking, it is only a condition accessory or predisposing to the development of the disease; it is rarely the nearest or exclusive provocative cause. The two other pathogenic processes of chief importance are disturbances antecedent to nutrition and infection. Disturb- ances of nutrition rule, in my opinion, the largest number of