Preventable Diseases   By: Woods Hutchinson (1862-1930)

BY

WOODS HUTCHINSON, A.M., M.D.

Author of "Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology," "Instinct and Health," etc., etc. Clinical Professor of Medicine, New York Polyclinic, late Lecturer in Comparative Pathology, London Medical Graduates College and University of Buffalo

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1907, 1908 AND 1909, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY WOODS HUTCHINSON

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published November 1909

FIFTH IMPRESSION

By Woods Hutchinson

THE CONQUEST OF CONSUMPTION. Illustrated. 12mo, $1.00 net . Postage extra.

PREVENTABLE DISEASES. 12mo, $1.50 net . Postage 13 cents.

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK

CONTENTS

I. The Body Republic and its Defense 1

II. Our Legacy of Health: the Power of Heredity in the Prevention of Disease 31

III. The Physiognomy of Disease: what a Doctor can tell from Appearances 55

IV. Colds and how to catch Them 83

V. Adenoids, or Mouth Breathing: their Cause and their Consequences 103

VI. Tuberculosis, a Scotched Snake. I 123

VII. Tuberculosis, a Scotched Snake. II 140

VIII. The Unchecked Great Scourge: Pneumonia 174

IX. The Natural History of Typhoid Fever 198

X. Diphtheria: the Modern Moloch 222

XI. The Herods of Our Day: Scarlet Fever, Measles, and Whooping Cough 243

XII. Appendicitis, or Nature's Remnant Sale 267

XIII. Malaria: the Pestilence that walketh in Darkness; the greatest Foe of the Pioneer 289

XIV. Rheumatism: what it Is, and particularly what it Isn't 311

XV. Germ Foes that follow the Knife, or Death under the Finger Nail 331

XVI. Cancer, or Treason in the Body State 350

XVII. Headache: the most useful Pain in the World 367

XVIII. Nerves and Nervousness 387

XIX. Mental Influence in Disease, or how the Mind affects the Body 411

Index 439

PREVENTABLE DISEASES

CHAPTER I

THE BODY REPUBLIC AND ITS DEFENSE

The human body as a mechanism is far from perfect. It can be beaten or surpassed at almost every point by some product of the machine shop or some animal. It does almost nothing perfectly or with absolute precision. As Huxley most unexpectedly remarked a score of years ago, "If a manufacturer of optical instruments were to hand us for laboratory use an instrument so full of defects and imperfections as the human eye, we should promptly decline to accept it and return it to him. But," as he went on to say, "while the eye is inaccurate as a microscope, imperfect as a telescope, crude as a photographic camera, it is all of these in one." In other words, like the body, while it does nothing accurately and perfectly, it does a dozen different things well enough for practical purposes. It has the crowning merit, which overbalances all these minor defects, of being able to adapt itself to almost every conceivable change of circumstances.