The biologist, T. Swann Harding, says that "the sciences of medicine and biology certainly do not know" "what is normal." He says that "the organism tested may be 'abnormal' and may demon-state appropriate 'abnormal' behavior, or it may be entirely 'normal' but may attract attention simply because it responds 'normally' to so-called abnormal conditions."

Normal is "in accordance with an established law or principle; conforming to a type or standard; regular; natural; usual:" We contend that all the body's actions are in accordance with an established law or principle; are natural, typical and conform to a standard. For instance, diarrhea following the taking of a purgative, is the usual, regular, typical, standard, lawful action under such conditions, and is, therefore, normal.

Trall says, "there can be no action in the living system except vital action, for whatever a vital organism does, in health or in disease, is vital action and nothing else." All physiological actions being determined by the vital needs of organs or organism, and all actions of organs being vital actions that conform to the laws of life at large, a rational interpretation of "abnormal" actions must regard them as normal under the circumstances under which they occur.

If we group vital actions as normal and abnormal, in the light of what has gone before, they would fall naturally into two groups, as follow:

1. Normal--the regular or ordinary actions of life in its functions, commonly called physiological; and

2. Abnormal--such modifications of the regular or ordinary actions of life as are essential to meet, overcome, destroy, or adjust to abnormal, unusual, or harmful conditions and agents, commonly called Pathological.

The first of these we call health. Trall says "health is normal or vital action in relation to things usable." (The Hygienic System) The second we call disease. Trall says, "disease is abnormal vital action, or action in relation to things non-usable." (Supra.) But is not each set of actions equally normal? Health is the normal response of the living organism to normal or wholesome things and conditions; "disease" is the normal response of the living organism to abnormal or unwholesome things and conditions. Trall explains that; "All the functions of vitality may be resolved into two sets of processes: one transforms the elements of food into tissues, and throws off the waste matters; this is Health--Physiology. The other expels extraneous or foreign substances and repairs damages; this is Disease--Pathology."--True Healing Art.

Our contention here, is merely that the functions or processes by which the body expels extraneous or foreign substances and repairs damages are as normal as are the functions by which it transforms food into tissue and excretes waste. In other words, we contend that most of what is called pathology is physiology. That so-called abnormal behavior of the body is as normal under the conditions that call it forth as are so-called normal actions under the conditions that elicit these--that it is just as normal for the stomach, for instance, to vomit epicec as for it to digest food. The body slides easily into "disease" when conditions warrant, and glides as easily back into health when conditions justify. Both are automatic.

It is because all agents that affect the system for evil, if they do not instantly paralyze it, excite it to acts of a physiological character-- conservative, defensive, or sustaining--which acts are processes of cure in every case, that we live at all. If this view is correct, and who will question it, there is no more reason for treating "disease" than there is for treating health.