22 THOMSONIAN SYSTEM
"Other men may more clearly develop these God-given principles, remove from them errors and crudities that still cling to them, discover and devise better ways and means of applying them; but, I repeat, the doctrines themselves, the general deductions from them, and the character of the processes of medication which constitute the Physio-Medical science and practice, are the immutable truths and art devised by the unchangeable God for the benefit of the unchangeable constitution of man, and can never 'progress' nor be supplanted while man shall inhabit this earth and disease continue to vex him.*
"This science and practice is the system of principles properly called physiological, or those that govern the formation and preservation of the organized body.
" (1) Its doctrines are that the human body is formed and controlled, preserved and defended, and, when injured, restored by the action of an invisible agent called the vital force; that, when all its parts are in such condition that this force can act freely and fully through them, this body is said to be in health.
"(2) The inability of any organ to perform its healthy function denotes disease. Hence, anything which in any way interferes with, or interrupts, this full, free and universal action through the body may be a cause of disease.
"(3) When, by ignorance, inadvertency, or unavoidable exposure, the conditions called disease have occurred, it teaches the duty of aiding the vital forces in its exciting, irritating and inflammatory efforts to remove the obstacles to healthy action, by means and process that do not further damage it, but tend directly to restore it [to supply requirements] and to heal the breach, if any.
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