If the birthright of every plant, animal, and human being is health, surely all these examples of disease must have something in common. It has been suggested throughout these chapters that much of this disease is due to farming and gardening methods which are inadmissible. J. E. R. McDonagh, whose work is not very widely known, due perhaps to the fact that an attempt has been made by the author to convey a too complete scientific picture of a very difficult and very intricate subject. I have therefore asked Mr. McDonagh to set out in the simplest possible language the gist of his results on the nature and causation of disease which are discussed in full in his The Universe Through Medicine and other writings. Every body in the universe is a condensation product of activity.
Every body pulsates, that is to say it undergoes alternate expansion and contraction.
The rhythm is actuated by climate. Protein in the sap of plants and in the blood of animals is such a body, and it is also the matrix of the structures in the former, and of the organs and tissues in the latter. If the sap in plants does not obtain from the soil the quality nourishment it requires, the protein over-expands. This overexpansion renders the action of climate an invader, that is to say climate, instead of regulating the pulsation, adds to the expansion. The overexpansion results in a portion of the protein being broken off, and this broken-off piece is a virus.