I was brought up, both by scientific men and ignorant women, distinctly
to believe that small-pox, for instance, was a thing of which there was
once a first specimen in the world, which went on propagating itself, in
a perpetual chain of descent, just as much as that there was a first
dog, (or a first pair of dogs), and that small-pox would not begin
itself any more than a new dog would begin without there having been a
parent dog.
Since then I have seen with my eyes and smelt with my nose small-pox
growing up in first specimens, either in close rooms or in overcrowded
wards, where it could not by any possibility have been "caught," but
must have begun.
Nay, more, I have seen diseases begin, grow up, and pass into one
another. Now, dogs do not pass into cats.
I have seen, for instance, with a little overcrowding, continued fever
grow up; and with a little more, typhoid fever; and with a little more,
typhus, and all in the same ward or hut.
Would it not be far better, truer, and more practical, if we looked upon
disease in this light?
For diseases, as all experience shows, are adjectives, not noun
substantives.
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