Excerpt from A Manual of the Practice of Medicine A Manual of the Practice of Medicine should deal with diseases, their nature, course and treatment. It has never been very satisfactorily determined what is to be called disease, or what are to be called diseases. TO say that disease is any divergence from health, or anything that is the Opposite of health, opens up the question, What is health? To this the answer is A perfect structure Of all the organs or tissues, with a perfect performance of all their functions and, in the broadest sense, any alteration Of structure or function may be called disease. But some special cases have to be considered. A distinction is commonly drawn between injury and disease; but the inflammation which so Often results from injury is disease of structure and function, and although the immediate effects Of injuries are not generally spoken Of as diseases, remote troubles sometimes occur which are so classed. Slight ailments, whether of a structural kind, such as mild catarrhs, or of a functional kind, like headaches - are Often Spoken of not as diseases, but as disorders, or ailments. There is, however, no essential difference, and no broad line Of distinction can be drawn between those which pass Off readily, leaving no trace, and those which persist, or recur frequently, or finally shorten life. 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.