Page:Medicine and the church.djvu/174

 absolute cure. There is no evidence whatever that suggestion in any form can do the same.

(d) What may be called progressive organic conditions, e.g. cirrhosis of the liver.

I entirely agree that, in the conditions of which this is an example, scientific medicine can only hope to ameliorate and render life more tolerable to the sufferer.

But here I come to close grips with our author, whose close and fair reasoning it is a real pleasure to follow. In a very large proportion of the diseases from which people die, the pathological condition consists in the deposition of fibrous tissue in some organ or part of the general system. The causes and clinical varieties are endless, but the result the same. To instance only a few, we have:

(a) Granular kidney, i.e. chronic Bright's disease.

(b) Cirrhotic liver.

(c) Arterio-sclerosis, resulting in cerebral hæmorrhage (stroke—apoplexy—paralysis).

(d) Locomotor ataxy.

(e) Tuberculous peritonitis with adhesions.

Now, in all these, the fibrous tissue is first deposited as an effort on the part of Nature to repair the damage done by an acute or chronic inflammation. But, unfortunately, not only