The Biologically Defenseless Patient

Abstract

Care of the “defenseless” patient is considered against the background of the balanced relation of man and his environment, his defenses and disease. A unified concept of disease has been developed as the reaction to injury sustained when defenses acquired through genetic factors and “socio-inheritance” are insufficient to protect a person from hostile factors around him.

Various degrees of reduced defensive capability are associated with hereditary defects, as in hemophilia (defense against hemorrhage, trauma); defects of judgment and coordination, as in senility and immaturity (defense against accidents); excessive defense mechanisms, as in autoimmune diseases; depression of defense mechanisms by drugs (iatrogenic disease); and disease states such as leukemia resulting in decreased resistance to infection and hemorrhage.