For an exhaustive study of Etiology attention would now have to be given to the modifying influences affecting the occurrence and character of diseases in connection with age, sex, and temperament. But, as neither of these is ever, per se, causative of any malady, and they merely determine some modification of the action of morbid causes when these occur, want of space must be our justification for leaving them to be considered, in this work, in connection with the special causation of the different {148} diseases which will be hereafter described. A larger treatment of our present subject belongs rather to hygiene than to practical medicine. MEDICAL DIAGNOSIS. For the purposes of the medical practitioner all professional studies unite to the end of furnishing preparation for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. At the bedside the cardinal questions are, How does the present condition of our patient differ from health? and, What ought we to do to bring about his recovery? Diagnosis involves three main directions of inquiry: 1, as to the general bodily state of the patient; 2, morbid changes in particular organs, tissues, or functions; 3, as to what name properly designates the disorder, according to accepted nomenclature. Pathology can never be out of view in connection with either the theoretical or the practical study of diagnosis. But it is most closely regarded when the last of these questions is before us, since the names of diseases generally have a more or less distinct reference to their pathological nature. Yet clinical observation always suggests the early use of provisional terms for recognized groupings of morbid phenomena; and sometimes these clinical designations remain for a long time in use because of the imperfection of pathology. We ascertain, in practice, the nature of a given case, first, by considering its symptoms. These are those obvious evidences of deviation from health which the patient himself is aware of, or which the physician readily discerns or elicits by simple inquiry or examination. Secondly, taking the clue furnished by symptoms, a closer inspection is made, with the intent of finding what is the actual state of important organs, as the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and alimentary canal. Lastly, when these means fail to remove all obscurity, or when special scientific investigation is practicable, instruments of precision are employed, as the thermometer, sphygmograph, ophthalmoscope, æsthesiometer, or aspirator; or by the microscope and chemical analyses still more minute examination is made into the particulars of the morbid processes present and their results. We may subdivide diagnosis, then, into: 1, symptomatology; 2, organoscopy or physical diagnosis; 3, instrumental diagnosis. Symptomatology.