The Project Gutenberg eBook, Disease and Its Causes, by William Thomas
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Title: Disease and Its Causes

Author: William Thomas Councilman

Release Date: March 8, 2005 [eBook #15283]

Language: English

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DISEASE AND ITS CAUSES

by

W. T. COUNCILMAN, A.M., M.D., LL.D.
Professor of Pathology, Harvard University

New York
Henry Holt and Company
London
Williams and Norgate
The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A.

1913

PREFACE

In this little volume the author has endeavored to portray disease as
life under conditions which differ from the usual. Life embraces much
that is unknown and in so far as disease is a condition of living
things it too presents many problems which are insoluble with our
present knowledge. Fifty years ago the extent of the unknown, and at
that time insoluble questions of disease, was much greater than at
present, and the problems now are in many ways different from those in
the past. No attempt has been made to simplify the subject by the
presentation of theories as facts.

The limitation as to space has prevented as full a consideration of
the subject as would be desirable for clearness, but a fair division
into the general and concrete phases of disease has been attempted.
Necessarily most attention has been given to the infectious diseases
and their causes. This not only because these diseases are the most
important but they are also the best known and give the simplest
illustrations. The space given to the infectious diseases has allowed
a merely cursory description of the organic diseases and such subjects
as insanity and heredity. Of the organic