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Excerpt from The Family Physician: A Manual of Domestic Medicine, by Physicians and Surgeons of the Principal London Hospitals; To Which Is Added the Ladies' Physician Fortunately for us it is possible to study the principles of health and disease, without being called upon to define what we mean by these terms. It is not always 'easy to express our meaning in a few set words, nor is it necessary that we should do So. We all understand that in health we recognise the natural or standard condition of the living body. Wve all know that it implies freedom from pain and Sickness, and freedom from all those changes in the natural fabric Of the body that endanger life or impede the easy, regular, and effectual exercise of the vital functions. Health does not signify any fixed and immutable condition of the body, for the standard varies in different persons according to age, sex, and original constitution, and even in the same person from week to week, and day to day. Health does not necessarily imply the integrity Of all the bodily organs, for a man may be perfectly healthy who has lost an eye, or even an 'arm or a leg. If we can only form a clear conception Of what we mean by health we Shall have no difficulty in understanding what is meant by disease, for disease, as we have already seen, is some deviation from the normal standard Of health. By disease we understand some uneasy or unnatural sensation which is manifest to the patient, some embarrassment of function which he or his friends may perceive, or some unsafe though hidden condition of which he may be quite unconscious. It should be borne in mind that by disease we mean the sum total of certain morbid changes that take place within the body. The mistake is Often made of supposing that disease is a something which has a distinct entity, that it is something that is taken into the body, and may be cast out again by appropriate remedies. You Often hear patients, and even doctors talk of driving the disease Off through the kidneys, or sweating it out of him. Many people seem to regard disease as being something which has distinct physical properties, something that can beefelt and seen. It is common enough to hear people say that he threw the disease off his stomach, just for all the world like a lump of currant jelly, or for them to use some expression Showing equally conclusively that they regard disease as having a distinct entity. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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