^TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 157 



pressure of the capillary blood- columns. But this 

 tendency to an equal diffusion of the blood's pressure 

 in the minute vessels, which is equivalent to either 

 a total perversion or suspension of the healthy uses 

 of the streams traversing them, is only observed 

 when, from some cause disturbing the natural pro- 

 portion between the rates of influx and efflux of the 

 blood circulating through the vessels of the part, the 

 rate of discharge of that fluid through the veins is 

 not equal to its rate of influx through the arteries. 

 Such a disproportion necessarily existed in all my 

 experiments on the kidney ; and the amount of 

 lateral pressure of the columns of blood detained 

 in the minute vessels of each, after the partial or 

 complete closure of the vein, was as in every other 

 case of obstructed circulation regulated thus. As- 

 suming the impulse of the arterial blood to have 

 been equal in a number of animals at the moment of 

 performing the experiment, any difference in the 

 amount of lateral pressure of the impeded columns 

 of blood must then have been altogether dependent 

 upon some inequality in the degree of obstruction 

 existing in the renal vein of each. And on the 

 other hand, where (as in the experiments comprised 

 in Table II.) the obstruction was in several cases 

 equally complete, the amount of lateral pressure of 

 the stagnant masses of fluid was then necessarily 

 quite equal to the onward pressure of each capillary 

 blood-column, and, like it, wholly proportioned to 

 the general pressure of the great mass of arterial 

 blood. 



But in examining how far this difference in the 



