Nosology - the clsssification of diseases. Imagine the problem the Ancients had trying
to understand the causes of disease, to be able to understand them and discuss them
intelligently and pass on to their posterity what they were able to learn in an assimilable
form.
The most exciting classification today is of course the diseases caused by genetic
aberrations.When I was in medical school, it was taught that Nature had several "horrors"
starting with "Nature ahhors a vacuum". I forget the others, except "Horror autotoxicus"
meaning that the body could do nothing to hurt itself. Alas, now we are finding that there
are a great many diseases in which the body harms itself. I have ankylosing spondylitis,
in which an auto-immune process destroys cartilage. I have a niece severely incapacitated
by multiple sclerosis. And the list of diseases caused by genetic defects is added to with
accererating frequency. Regrettably the knowledge is leading to improved therapy with
tantalizing tardiness.