Any one who has had the opportunity of observation in the clinical wards or dead-house of a general hospital, must have been struck, as I have been, with the multiform and complex pathologic conditions frequently met with; and with the further fact that even with the patient upon the postmortem table, in the hands of a skilful pathologist, with the viscera laid open to inspection, and with the aid of the microscope, it is oftentimes difficult to discover the primary condition, the connection between the different morbid processes, or to allege with certainty the cause of death.
I have thought, therefore, that it would be a subject of interest and perhaps of profit to collate some of the more important facts concerning the etiologic and functional relations of different diseases and pathologic conditions. I can not, in the short time at my disposal upon this occasion, do more than to