The Meaning of Disease (An Inquiry in the Field of Medical Philosophy). By William A. White. Baltimore:  The Williams and Wilkins Company, 1926. Pp.  220.

This little volume from the very beginning is an interesting departure from the ordinary ways of approaching the problem usually known as “disease.” It would seem that philosophers, scientists, physicians and others have been discussing the problems of health and disease for centuries without having any clear fundamental concept of the nature or character of the situation in its relation to the rest of the universe. Being unable to discover a satisfactory definition of either “disease” or “health,” each one being usually expressed in terms of absence of the other, Dr. White has attempted to inquire into and to clarify this state of affairs by methods of formulation and generalization belonging to the domain of philosophy, thereby utilizing both the analytic and synthetic attitudes rather than the analytic one alone, which has been super-refined by the technical laboratory workers. He believes in the utilization of the “workshop of the mind” and does not hesitate when necessary to “use speculation, hypothesis and theory” in searching for pathways into the obscurity of the unknown realms of science and philosophy.

In the opening chapters he defines the fields of medicine, science and philosophy, points out in a lucid manner their special relations, functions and interdependencies, and emphasizes that disease and health are simply relative terms universally used to express something without understanding it. The proper approach to such problems consists of admitting, (1) the unity of the organism, the total activity of which is mental reaction,