Casting the confusing nosologies and classifications of the schools to the wind, Dr. Jennings says, "most systems of medicine, in their nosological character, are but attempts to classify the phenomena and symptoms of disease; and from the very nature of the subject, can be but fruitless attempts."--Philosophy of Human Life. Again, he says, in the same book, (p. 88), "The external appearances, or tokens of distress, which the vital economy is compelled to develop under the pressure of overpowering causes, and which are called diseases, are as evanescent in their general character as the morning cloud, and the early dew; and as changeable as the 'shifting figures of the magic lantern' and as numerous and multiform, as endless variety of causes and influences acting upon millions of parts, each impressible with varied action, in kind and degree, can produce. And these phenomena will vary in different countries or communities according to the nature and degree of violence done to the vital machinery, by different modes of life. Where departure from correct living is the widest and longest persevered in, the phenomena of impaired healthy action will be the most numerous, complicated and severe or aggravated; and where the laws of life are best observed, and for the longest period, these phenomena will be the fewest, least complicated and mildest."

Dr. Benjamin Rush, who signed the Declaration of Independence, and who also insisted, when the Constitution was being framed, that provisions for medical liberty equal to that of religious and political liberty be made, also accepted the idea of the unity of disease. Dr. Rush was one of the greatest minds of the Revolutionary period, a scientist and painstaking investigator. It cannot be said whether he arrived at his convictions independently or received them from Thompson, with whom he was very friendly and whose views he endorsed to a great extent. He declared:

"Much mischief has been done by the nosological arrangement of diseases .... Disease is as much a unit as fever .... Its different seats and degrees should no more be multiplied into different diseases than the numerous and different effects of heat and light upon our globe should be multiplied into a plurality of suns.

"The whole materia medica is infected with the baneful consequences of the nomenclature of disease; for every article in it is pointed only against their names .... By rejection of the artificial arrangement of diseases, a revolution must follow in medicine .... The road to knowledge in medicine by this means will likewise be shortened; so that a young man will be able to qualify himself to practice physic at a much less expense of time and labor than formerly, as a child would learn to read and write by the help of the Roman alphabet, instead of Chinese characters.

"Science has much to deplore from the multiplication of disease. It is as repugnant to truth in medicine as polytheism is to truth in religion. The physician who considers every different affection of different parts of the same system as distinct diseases, when they arise from one cause, resembles the Indian or African savage who considers water, dew, ice, frost, and snow as distinct essences; while the physician who considers the morbid affections of every part of the body, however diversified they may be in their form or degree, as derived from one cause, resembles the philosopher who considers dew, ice, frost, and snow as different modifications of water, and as derived simply from the absence of heat."

The physio-medicalists defined disease as "the inability of an organ or part to perform its proper functions." Dr. Dickson said, "The phenomena of perfect health consists in the regular repetition of alternate motions or events; . . . . Disease, under all its manifestations, is, in the first place, a simple exaggeration or diminution of the amount of the same motion or events ..... " Dr. Jennings defined disease as " impaired health",

"feeble vitality". Kuhne said "the presence of ... foreign matter in the body is disease." Trall defined disease as a curative process; "vital action in relation to things abnormal." These varying conceptions of the essential nature of disease produced obvious differences in their conceptions of the unity of disease ; but all saw more or less clearly that we must forever discard the superstition that each so-called disease is an isolated entity, risen into existence out of nothing, either to continue until it destroys its victim upon which it feeds parasitically, or else be driven back into nothingness by the conjurations and potencies of the doctor. Trall's conception of disease is in harmony with modern biology.

Disease must be regarded as varying expressions of one thing. Thus, instead of there being many diseases of different orders, classes, species, and genera, the various classifications of disease are merely subjective taxonomic orders and not objective realities of nature, are mere conveniences of thought. The names of the nosologies are merely terms descriptive of varying conditions and not names for entities or things. The wealth of terms of the nosology confuses both the laity and the professions. The whole pre-Pasteurian nosological nomenclature could be wholly discarded by the world and the medical professions, with the greatest benefit to all.

Disease, as commonly understood, is a group of symptoms and their underlying pathology. A few symptoms are grouped together and endowed with individuality and given a specific name and are then regarded as specific entities. The various so-called "diseases" are not actual existences, but are mere verbal designations, which, while they may be made conveniences for study, are apt to confuse and mislead the student in the future as they have the student of the past. They are mere symbols, or descriptive terms, which, like idols, lend to become, for us, the reality, and to obscure the thing for which they stand. Idols, which always begin as images of God, tend to become gods. Names which we use as descriptions of pathological variations tend to become names for entities.

But the fictional entities thus created are not as specific as they may, on first glance, appear. The symptoms of all "diseases" are the same. Fever is the same thing whether it is in "measles", or "scarlet fever", or "typhoid", or "pneumonia", or "other disease". So is pain. So is accelerated heart action, or accelerated respiration. So is decreased function. Destruction of tissue in one organ is the same as destruction of tissue in another organ. No "disease" possesses its own symptoms All "diseases" are merely varying groups of the same symptoms.

There are many different degrees of health and each structure is liable to depart from the ideally healthy standard in various ways; each organ suffering coetaneously and simultaneously with several others. Thus the forms or combinations of biogony, though constituted of a few common and simple elements, are exceedingly numerous. Or, as Dr. Trall expressed it, after describing the internal condition of the sick person, with reference both to general and local enervation and general and local toxemia, " .... it may present many phases of irregular and disorderly action; sometimes concentrating the whole remedial effort in one direction or to one outlet; sometimes making it, with more or less force, successively in various directions."--Hydropathic Encyclopedia, Vol. 2, p. 66.