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An Essay on Useful Irrelevancies in the Study of Tissue Damage

LEWIS THOMAS, M.D.

Arch Intern Med. 1962;110(5):782-786.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

I should say, at the outset, that this paper, with its rather tedious and—now that I think of it—essentially stuffy title, is not intended to clear up the matter of the inflammatory reaction. Indeed, I shall not even make a definition of inflammation, a term I have never really understood. I will not undertake to solve the Shwartzman reaction, even though this problem, like King Charles' head, has been stuck in my mind for over 15 years. These are, in my view, inviolable secrets of nature, designed by Providence to keep experimental pathologists contentedly engaged for whole lifetimes, and not to be solved. They are, in their way, assurances of long-range laboratory activity which are equivalent to Oliver Wendell Holmes' prescription for longevity: to have a chronic incurable disease and take good care of it.

I hope, instead, to illustrate some of the ways in which biological systems, especially those . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
NEW YORK

From the Department of Medicine, New York University-Bellevue Medical Center, and the Third and Fourth (NYU) Medical Divisions, Bellevue Hospital.

Footnotes
This paper is based on a lecture given at Harvard Medical School on Alumni Day, June 2, 1962.

This work was supported by grants from the United States Public Health Service (GM-06367-04) and the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (DA-49-07-MD-590).

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