TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 139 



judge, the settlement of a difficult and long-agitated 

 question is not in general much facilitated by an 

 extended series of quotations. My remarks will 

 therefore chiefly bear upon those views which, 

 either from their present popularity, or from their 

 resemblance or antagonism to my own, could not 

 very well be passed over in silence. 



Were it now necessary to insist upon, not merely 

 the study, but the advancement of physiology, as an 

 indispensable \ reliminary to the successful cultiva- 

 tion of pathological science, no stronger argument 

 could be presented than an appeal to the history of 

 the various doctrines which have at different periods 

 been promulgated as to the nature of inflammation. 

 For Ave find each to have been based upon certain 

 peculiar views of the physiology of the circulation, 

 none of Avhich seem to have possessed sufficient 

 solidity to withstand the attacks of more recent 

 inquirers ; and the consequence has been, the 

 gradual downfall of the pathological doctrines which 

 were based upon erroneous or obscure views of the 

 natural actions of the body. 



The first author to whom I shall allude is Boer- 

 haave, whose ideas on this subject may, by some, be 

 considered to approximate very closely to those 

 which I have adopted. But a slight examination 

 of his writings will suffice to show that, beyond the 

 fact of our mutually recognising a mechanical ob- 

 struction as the universal concomitant and cause of 

 inflammation, my views of the essential nature of 

 this disease and of the manner in which it operates 

 in the production of its effects, are very different 



