Environment In Its Relationship To Health And Disease

The two words "health" and "disease" are used daily, but few know anything, except in a general way, of what either means.
The general conception is that health is a fixed, ideal state or entity, and that disease is a fixed state or entity whose particular purpose it is to war on health.
In aboriginal man's conception, disease was an evil spirit. In the early days epilepsy was caused by the devil. According to the Bible, an epileptic was a person possessed of the devil, or of devils.
A doctor in Cincinnati has discovered that epilepsy is caused by a particular germ, which the doctor has named "bacillus epilepticus."* (* Since this was put in type the doctor has recanted.) This devil germ takes up his abode in the colon, and from this throne torments his victim.
The Bible doctors cast out the devil Epilepticus in the name of the Lord. The Cincinnati doctor advocates casting the throne or habitat of this devil bacillus out by a surgical operation, on the theory that by destroying his abode Mr. Devil will depart forever.
It takes about as much faith to accept the germ theory as the devil theory. Indeed, both are conceptions built out of hypotheses that have their foundation in the false theory that the universe is governed by two Deities--namely, God and Devil. The whole germ theory is a refined and modernized demonology.