Against their own wills, physiologists were driven to a recognition of what certain ancients called the "law of the members." Indeed, the interdependence of the organs of the body has aroused the wonderment of physiologists. No longer is it considered the legitimate function of science to isolate the parts and treat them as though they had a separate existence of their own. It is now the effort of science to get a clear picture of the tout ensemble. The mere specialist's view is, in the long run, inadequate and unsatisfactory.

Physiologists have been forced to the conclusion that what happens at one place in the body is in consonance with what is occurring at another. In fact, it is now well known that every part acts more distinctly for the good of the whole than for its own advantage.

It remains only that this same principle be recognized in the workings of the body in "disease" for the science of physiology to be complete. The time has come when it is necessary for us to cease thinking of what is called "morbid function" as outside of or apart from physiology.

We have also to cease thinking of this so-called "morbid function" as, of itself, an evil. How can we consistently hold that inflammation is both a constructive, a healing, process and, at the same time, an evil? How can we hold that fever is both curative and destructive?
The behavior of the body in those states called disease represents mere modifications for the most part, exaggerations or diminution's - of its ordinary or normal behavior. They are as truly vital or physiological as the ordinary activities of life.

If we can learn to see them, not only as modifications of the ordinary activities of life, but as modifications that are made to serve definite and useful ends, we can get away from the ancient, though still prevailing, conception of "disease" as an attack upon the body by some outside force or entity. We can see that, apart from the body itself, disease has no existence.

Disease does not attack us. It is, rather, the name we have given to the processes by which we attack the foes of life. We do not resist disease. Disease is part of the process by which we resist the foes of life. When we vomit a poison that has been swallowed, this process is part of our resistance to the poison. If the drug is expelled by means of a diarrhea this is only another means we have of resisting the poison.

There is as much sense in calling the processes by which we resist and expel poisons, evil, as there would be in calling the process of tanning, by which we resist an excess of the sun's rays, an evil.

I can see no objection to distinguishing between the two sets of actions -the ordinary or normal process of living and the extraordinary or abnormal process of living -for convenience of study, but only so long as this is not allowed to obscure their fundamental oneness or identity.

The difference between a diarrhea and a normal bowel action is one of degree, not of kind. It is wrong to attribute normal bowel action to the powers of life (call it physiological ) and then attribute the abnormal bowel action to some attacking force (call it non-physiological) .The action in both instances is the same. In both instances, too, it serves the same purpose -namely, the expulsion of unwanted or injurious materials

In speaking of the cause of disease, it is well for us to have a clear understanding of what we mean by disease. Fever is caused by the same powers of life that produce normal body temperatures. Inflammation is caused by the same powers of life  that cause normal circulation. Diarrhea is caused by the same physiological powers that cause normal bowel action.
 

All vital or physiological actions, whether called normal or abnormal, are caused by the same vital or physiological powers. Outside forces do not cause the actions of the body. The cause of vital actions is resident in the living organism.

Poisons -toxins -cause injury, not physiological or vital processes and actions. The injury or threat of injury is the occasion for action, not the cause of the action.

If poisons could cause action, there seems to be no reason why a strong purgative could not cause action in the bowels of the dead. But the cause of action is elsewhere and when that cause of action is gone, no action follows no matter what is done to induce it.

It is one thing to produce damage -it is another thing to produce function, even modified function. What we are to regard as the cause of disease must depend on which of the three separate sets or groups of phenomena commonly included under this generic term we mean by disease.

Cut a man with a knife. We have:
(1) The act of cutting and the agent of
cutting -the knife.
(2) The cut.
(3) The pain, bleeding, inflammation and other vital phenomena that follow at the site of the cut.

The knife causes the cut, it does not cause the inflammation. In current literature of disease we have all three of the above sets of facts called disease.

The vital actions - defensive, reparative, eliminative, recuperative, - are called disease.

The condition of injury produced by poisons, toxins, parasites, fire, cold, etc., is called disease.

The cause of the injury is called disease. Take your choice.

Until these three groups of distinct phenomena are carefully separated, both in our minds and in our terminology, there is no hope of escape from the present almost universal confusion about a subject that should be simple and easily understood.

~end of excerpts from Getting Well~

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