7. The Conscious Life of Man

But the other situation may come about, in which the inner vital activity of an organ, let us say, in this case, the organ of the blood, whose inner vital activity is destined to develop a life of its own, passes beyond a certain limit, exercises unduly this life of its own. Among all occurring human irregularities this is by far the most serious, since it has most of all to do with cases of illness. Only very seldom have we to deal with the opposite condition. It is generally the case that certain parts of the inner organisation are too little protected and therefore too intensely stimulated. When the blood shows itself to be most highly stimulated, when it shows an excessive tendency to develop this activity, it then becomes necessary to counteract this. We can remedy this by introducing the appropriate vital activities from without. In other words, we co-operate in the process of salification, of salt-depositing, by the therapeutic introduction of such substances as contribute to bring it about. This leads us at once to see that a kind of system may be introduced into the way in which we have to deal with the irregularities of our organism.