Symptoms of Visceral Disease, a Study of the a Nervous System in Tis Relationship to Clinical Medicine (Classic Reprint)

Though I have devoted myself to the study of diseases of the chest a so-ealled specialty for more than twenty years, experience has led me to see that such a thing as a medical specialty in the accepted sense of the term, can not exist. Diseases can not be divided into those of this and that organ; for the human body is a unit. One part can not be diseased without affecting other parts. No organ can be understood except in its; relationship to other organs and to the body as a whole. In this monograph ian attempt is made to interpret so far as may be possible in terms of visceral neurology, symptoms which are found in the everyday clinical observation of visceral disease. It is a study of visceral disease not from the standpoint of the disease process, important as that is, but from the no less important standpoint of the patient who has the disease. It is an attempt to show how pathologic changes in one organ affect other organs and the organism as a whole, through the medium of the visceral nerves. In contradistinction to the usual treatment of disease processes in their pathologic anatomic relationships this, is a study in pathologic physiology. It is largely a discussion of viscerogenic reflexes; and, as such, causes us to examine somewhat carefully into the problems connected with the vegetative nervous system. It aims to show the importance of careful clinical observation and analysis. The idea of the viscerogenic reflex is developed more fully than is usual in medical discussions; and the parasympathetic reflexes have been given as much attention as those of sympathetic origin. In this respect my discussion will differ from that of Mackenzie in his book on Symptoms and Their I nterpretation, to which I have referred so often in these pages. I have also emphasized the importance of the viscero trophic reflex, a subject which has been almost wholly omit
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