Croonian Lectures on Disease and its Medical Treatment
Authors: J. S. Bristowe
Journal: BMJ (1872)

No one who lhas not tried his hand at it can appreciate the difficulty of making a consistenit classification of diseases.All who had anything to do with the preparation of the celebrated ANomdancl/alitrL will especially have a wholesome dreadl of attempting it ; and I shall niot attempt it.At the samiie timiie, I propose to enumerate certain families or groups of diseases (into onie or other of which most of the diseases with which wne are acquailnte(d seemi to fall more or less naturally) with the object of basing uponi them, and thus bringingy into some kind of order, the remarks (w-ith wN-hich I shall end this lecture) upon the processes by which disease .affects the body, as well as those upon the remedial treatment of disease, which will occupy my subsequent lectures.I. Funclional Discas's.-Isuppose there is no dtoubt tllat all so- called " functional" diseases are the results of intimate structural or chemical changes: but, as we do not the least know in what these changes consist, and recognise the diseases only by certain perversions of function, the term " functional" may still be fairly retained for them.The diseases to which the name is most applicable are for the most part connected wvith the nervous or muscular systems ; and amongst them may be especially enumerated mania, epilepsy, chorea, asthma, palpitation, angina pectoris, and neuralaia.It must be added, however, that no diseases occur in which functional disturbance in some form or other is not present, and does not form a more or less important item. 2.Diseases orie,jinating in EXCeSS, Deficiency, or Imipr-oper Quality of Aourishiesnt.-Thesewould comprise not only cases of general ple- thora due to over-eating, and of anzemia or emaciation due to insufficiency of food, and scurvy, and some other affections traceable to improper quality of food; but cases also in which, owing (say) to obstruction of lymplhatics, the bones and other tissues of a limb become hyper- trophied, and those in which (in consequence of excessive lactation or litmorrhage or discharge of pus) the blood becomes poor generally, or in certain elements.3. Diseases arisinc fromz Retained Excretions are such, therefore, as depend on the retention in the blood of carbonic acid, urea, or bile.4. Diseases dlueto thie Actiont of Poisonts.-Underthis head might be included morbid conditions owing to the reception into the system of various vegetable poisons, such as strychnia, opium, chloroform, and ergot; of various animal poisons, such as those of venomous animals, and those occasionally yielded by mussels, sausages, and the like and of various clhenmical poisons-lead, mercury, and arsenic, to wit.And we niight, perhaps, also add to the list of poisons chemical substances acting locally as irritants or caustics.5. Diseases orz,,1zinati;?g in Akehzanical Causes.-Thesewould comprise all those cases in which tubes are narrowed or closed by compression, stricture, or concretions-hernia, intussusception, gall-stones, stricture of the urinary passages, thrombosis, embolism, affections of the cardiac valves, dilatations and perforations of tubes and cavities, and mecha- nical impediments to the transmission of nervous influence along the nerves or cord.6. ParasitiCal Diseases.-These are due solely and entirely to the fact that certainloNwly but perfectly definite species of animals or vegetables have made the body their habitat.They include scabies, phtheiriasis, trichiniasis, and those diseases dependent on the presence of cysticerci and intestinal worms, ringworm, favus, and pityriasis.