TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 14 1 



The signal failure of Boerhaave's attempt to 

 found a mechanical doctrine of inflammation seems 

 to have deterred modern pathologists from ever 

 directing their thoughts to the possibility of its 

 being, in all its essential characteristics, a purely 

 physical disorder. They have consequently, in 

 alluding to the question of its nature, contented 

 themselves with describing as minutely as possible 

 the changes which are observed to take place in an 

 inflamed part, the production of those changes being 

 of course referred to nervous, or vital, or, in other 

 words, to some unknown agency. It is not, there- 

 fore, surprising that the discussions which occupy so 

 prominent a place in the modern history of inflam- 

 mation should have reference rather to the correct- 

 ness of some disputed observation, or the adjustment 

 of some incidental and secondary question, than to 

 the establishment of a great principle explanatory of 

 the nature, causation, and consequences of this 

 disorder of the circulation. We accordingly find 

 that the investigations of Thomson, Philip, Hastings, 

 and others, are chiefly directed to the settlement of 

 the dispute as to whether the action of the vessels is 

 inordinately increased or diminished in the inflamed 

 part. It is not always very easy to understand the 

 precise meaning intended to be expressed by the 

 term action ; but so far as relates to the establish- 

 ment of the fact of the enlargement of the minute 

 blood-vessels, and the gradual retardation and ulti- 

 mate stagnation of the blood contained within them, 

 the microscopical observations of these gentlemen 

 are sufficiently conclusive. 



