TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 125 



base the elucidation of its pathology upon the 

 disordered condition of the circulation in the affected 

 part, will, of course, be hereafter considered in 

 detail. But before stating the experiments and 

 reasoning which appear to me to establish certain 

 views in this department of the pathology of the 

 circulation, I may, perhaps, be permitted to allude 

 to a circumstance which has, in my opinion, pre- 

 vented those doctrines, though ably advocated, from 

 conducting to any satisfactory and final solution of 

 the difficulty : and that circumstance is, the paucity 

 and indirectness of the facts on which they rest. 



In order to test the accuracy of this statement, let 

 any one examine for himself the different works on 

 inflammation, and scrutinise and classify the facts 

 adduced in support of the various views therein 

 advocated. And with the exception of those long- 

 observed phenomena which, though recorded for 

 centuries, led to no extension of our actual know- 

 ledge of the disease, these facts will be found to 

 consist of experimental observations upon the lower 

 animals. It is exclusively from the latter that the 

 more precise information which we now possess 

 on the subject has been derived; and from them 

 also have originated all the modern ideas as to 

 the essential nature of inflammation and its allied 

 morbid conditions. The importance of a clear con- 

 ception of the force and pertinency of these facts, 

 and of the extent to which the resulting conclusions 

 may be applied towards the elucidation and settle- 

 ment of the general question, will therefore be 

 sufficiently obvious. 



