Preventable Diseases

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 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,…