It is essential that we learn to separate the vital forces and vital activities from the extra-vital, non-vital and anti-vital, mechanical, chemical, thermal and electrical forces and their effects. We must distinguish, for instance between inflammation and its cause on the one hand, and mortification and its causes on the other; or between fever and its cause on the one hand and toxemia and its causes on the other. These two kinds of action--dead and living--are so unalike in their nature that in strictness, they should not be dealt with together. We are compelled not to disregard the distinctions between them.

Physical, chemical, thermal, electrical and vital (parasitic) agents are capable of damaging the body. Their effects may be grouped as chemical and mechanical. Doctors and laymen alike commonly confuse the effects of injurious agents and the efforts of the living organism to meet and overcome and destroy them and to repair damages. Let us try to separate these two groups of phenomena.

Cut the body of a living man and there is pain, bleeding, fibrin-formation, blood-clot, redness, swelling, healing and sloughing of the scab. Cut the body of a dead man and none of these things follow. Strike your finger with a hammer and there is pain, hemorrhage into the tissues, blood-clot, inflammation, healing and removal of debris. Strike the finger of a dead man and none of these things follow. The cut is the only effect of the knife. The bruise is the only effect of the hammer. All of the above enumerated phenomena are examples of the reaction of the living body to physical or mechanical injury.

Put muriatic acid on a dead body and it destroys the flesh it comes in contact with. Put it on a live body and it does the same. These are examples of the action (chemical) of harmful chemical substances upon the body. These destroy. But, whereas, their action is followed by nothing but further decay in the dead body; in the living organism their action is followed by pain, inflammation, and healing.

Put a mustard plaster on the body of a dead man and nothing happens. Put it on a live body and redness, smarting, and blistering follow. A blistering plaster readily occasions inflammation in a healthy and vigorous skin, and difficulty in a feeble skin. Trall describes this as follows: "Apply a blistering plaster to the skin of a healthy, vigorous, young person. It 'draws' readily and the skin is soon vesicated. Apply it then to a feeble, pale, anemic, or dropsical invalid. It 'draws' with difficulty or not at all. Before it will vesicate, the skin must be rubbed with some pungent or irritant, as hot vinegar or red pepper. Then apply the plaster to the skin of a dead person. It will produce no effect whatever. What is the explanation of these facts?

"If the blister acted on the skin, the effect would be greater instead of less in the cases of feeble persons, for the reason that there is less vital resistance. But the contrary happens to be the fact. The effect of the blister is precisely according to the vigor, integrity, and resisting power of the living and acting machinery; and this I regard as proof positive that it is the living system, and not the dead drug, which acts. And the principle herein indicated explains how it is, and why it is that healthy vigorous persons, when equally exposed to the causes of disease, have more acute and violent maladies. Disease being remedial action, and their vital machinery being in vigorous condition, the defensive action, the disturbance, the disease will manifest proportionally more violent symptoms."--The Hygienic System.

Blistering, like diarrhea, is a defensive reaction intended to protect the body from the damaging effects of friction, fire, or irritating drugs.

Give a dose of salts to a dead man and nothing happens; give it to a vigorous man and a violent diarrhea occurs; give it to a feeble man and a feeble diarrhea occurs.

From these last two examples and similar ones we have previously given, we induce the following law: The actions of the living organism in the presence of a drug are the responses of its own powers to the drug and are proportioned to the degree of its vital vigor.

The vital powers offer a perpetual resistance to all pathogenic influences and agents. When this resistance is stronger than the pathogenic influence, "disease" does not occur. The body has at its command a wealth of means of meeting conditions and agents that threaten its integrity. In all cases Nature makes the proper efforts to remedy the condition. At successive periods of life the body responds to poisons in different ways, but always defensively.

Emesis, diarrhea and the colliquative perspiration are not the evil. They are but functional efforts to free the body of some offending agent. Poisons are provocative of vital actions and reactions, but they do not produce the actions. To think so is to attribute to these agents that which belong wholly to the vital power. Only a complex organism is capable of all the actions seen in "disease".

Whatever the exciting causes (occasions) of biogony, they all produce the same general effects upon the organs and tissues. The real difference in one biogony and in another is the difference in the complexity of the mechanism which responds, and not in the manner in which the "stimulus" (poison) is received. Complex structures have complex "diseases" (biogonies).

In man we have a complex structure united to a complex physiology or way of life. Organs and parts are arranged in systems and series more or less complicated, with functional activities in turn of a correspondingly intricate character. Some structures or systems are more complex than others and in all so-called "diseases," one organ or system is most involved in the defensive struggle.

There goes on in "disease" certain interdependent processes and changes in the presence of aiding or hindering influences outside of it. Biogony, considered in its various manifestations and in its oneness, appears as a process of stabilization and organic repair. It assumes as many different aspects as tissues and fluids encounter new situations.

In general, the accommodation to pathogenic agents assumes two different aspects: (1) it opposes their entrance into the body and tends to destroy and eliminate them; and (2) it repairs the damages these have produced in the tissues. Dr. Carrel, who comes dangerously close to asserting the orthopathic character of "disease", says "disease is nothing but the development of these processes. It is equivalent to the struggle of the body against a disturbing agent."

Flesh may be burned with fire, or destroyed with electricity, or consumed by parasites. In these, as in all other cases, the body acts to defend and repair itself. Its actions are mere modifications of the ordinary or normal processes of life and no new or extra-vital super-addition to these powers and processes. "Disease", like "health", is a manifestation of life. By insisting upon the uniformity of the forces underlying developments, we can arrive at no other conclusion.