TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 143 



Wedemeyer's idea, that the capillaries are mem- 

 braneless canals, mere grooves or channels in the 

 parenchyma, without any proper investing coat ; his 

 inability to adduce any direct and positive facts in 

 support of his opinion, and his retention of, what I 

 must conceive to be, erroneous and obscure views of 

 the physiology of the circulation, would probably, 

 for an indefinite period, have prevented his expla- 

 nation from receiving the attention which it merits. 

 If the correctness of the principle which I am about 

 to endeavour to establish should ever be generally 

 admitted, whatever credit may be attached to a 

 partial anticipation of the doctrine is certainly, as 

 far as I know, due to Mr. Earle. And I have the 

 more pleasure in admitting this priority in the con- 

 ception of the leading idea, inasmuch as that gentleman 

 is personally unknown to me, and our views are, in 

 almost every other particular, diametrically opposite. 



PART IV. 



Or THE LAWS REGULATING THE EFFECTS OF OBSTRUCTED CA- 

 PILLARY CIRCULATION, AS DEDUCED FROM A COURSE OF 

 EXPERIMENTS ON TEE KIDNET. 



It has always appeared to me an extraordinary 

 circumstance, that, while every theory of inflamma- 

 tion which has appeared since the discovery of the 

 circulation more or less explicitly recognises the 

 existence of some unnatural obstruction to the 



