Some Prolegmena to a Philosophy of Medicine (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos or missing text. Not indexed. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1896. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... upon bacteria, and as this covers the ground of more than one generation, the process of infection is by no means an easy one to understand. Our law will aid us, however, by discriminating in a given disease or case as to what belongs to the life of the bacteria and what to the life of the infected individual. This point is a most important one in the history of all infectious diseases, but more especially in the history of tuberculosis. Perhaps less than in any other disease, the pathology and morbid anatomy of tuberculous disease does not belong to the life of the tubercle bacillus, but is an organic result of that bacillus acting as an incentive to the life of the organism which it infects. (iii.) A knowledge of the law of life, too, will aid in the treatment of infectious disease by effecting a discrimination between the measures to be employed for destroying the micro-organisms, or staying the process of infection, and the measures to be adopted for aiding directly a recovery from the effects of the infective cause. 12. (i.) The Science of Pharmacology, which may be held to include both pharmacodynamics, and drug pathogenesy, occupies a most important position in the philosophy of medicine. A distinction must be drawn as to the use of the two terms pharmacodynamics and drug pathogenesy. Pharmacodynamics is not a branch of biology, except in so far as some drugs have their orderly place in botany, and a certain behaviour when subjected to preparation before being administered to healthy life. These points, along with their chemistry and the chemistry and physical qualities of nonorganic substances, constitute the true science of pharmacodynamics. On the other hand, drug pathogenesy is a true branch of biology, or physiology, more strictly speakin...