Research in physiological chemistry, has so far determined that there are sixteen definite and discernible elements--and a seventeenth is now in course of determination--which, in their various combinations and aggregations, form the different tissues of which the various organs of the human body are constructed.
The preponderance of one or more of these elements in a certain tissue forms the main or governing feature, or tissue of any organ. Thus the prevalence of potassium phosphate forms the muscle tissue, the prevalence of ammonium phosphate (lecithin) forms the nerve tissue.
For the purpose of general explanation it is sufficient to know that each of the various tissues consist of some of these elements, and that each of the tissues, at whatever part of the body it exists, is affected by the lack of any one of these elements.
The greatest chemist of the age, Justus von Liebig, maintains that if one of the necessary elements in a chemical composition is missing, the rest cannot fulfil their duties, and the consequence of such deficiency is that the cell in question must become diseased and degenerate.
This discovery, known as "the law of the minimum," has thrown an additional reassuring light upon the practice of the new school of medicine.
_To bring to the tissue the lacking constituent element or elements by way of the blood is the only means of regenerating that tissue, that is, of healing its diseased cells._
DYSAEMIA THE CAUSE OF ALL CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.
Within the limits of this abstract I do not propose to deal with the disturbances in the system caused by traumatic influences, such as wounds, etc. We are treating only of _constitutional_ diseases which, whether of acute or of chronic character, are all caused by the lack of such chemical elements as described.
It has been shown that the blood supplies all the chemical substances to the different tissues, and that, consequently, it is the lack of these elements in the blood, which causes the tissues to degenerate, or, in other words, _the lack of certain chemical elements in the blood is disease_.
It is, therefore, merely a question as to _which of the elements are missing or which do not exist in correct proportion_, that determines the different forms of disease.