142 ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF 



Dr. C. J. B. Williams, in some lectures which 

 appeared in the " Medical Gazette " during the 

 year 1841, and the substance of which is incor- 

 porated in his recent publication on the Principles 

 of Medicine, has certainly treated this interesting 

 and important subject in a much more rational spirit 

 than, witli one exception, any preceding writer. 

 His definition of inflammation is, however, liable to 

 the same objection which I have urged against those 

 of other modern pathologists, viz. that it mw/y 

 describes certain phenomena of the disease, without 

 imparting to the mind of the reader any definite 

 idea of its real nature ; for he defines inflammation 

 as " local hyperiemia in a part ; the motion of that 

 blood being partly increased and partly diminished." 

 And beyond the fact of its drawing a distinction 

 between the rate of motion of the blood contained 

 in the part actually inflamed, and that circulating in 

 the adjacent capillaries, I must confess my inability 

 to perceive in this definition any more precise 

 information as to the essential nature of the disease 

 than is to be found in that of Celsus. 



The writer who ha?, in my opinion, exhibited the 

 greatest ability in his examination of this subject, is 

 Mr. .7. "W. Earle. His papers, published in the 

 " Medical Gazette," during the year 1835, not only 

 evince great sagacity and high powers of reasoning, 

 but also show their author to have been animated by 

 a sincere love of truth. On one or two important 

 points lie lias suggested views almost identical with 

 those which have been forced up .n me by my own 

 relied ion and rescarehe-. But his adoption of 



