162 ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF 



circumstances of the disease, it is of course indis- 

 pensable that the fact of the existence, in every 

 case of inflammation, of this local disorder in the 

 distribution of the blood's pressure, should be clearly 

 demonstrated. 



Now whatever objections may be urged against 

 the doctrine which recognises, in the local increase 

 of the blood's lateral pressure, the essence of the 

 disease termed inflammation, no one can deny the 

 fact of the existence of an unnatural amount of 

 distending or lateral pressure in the columns of 

 blood filling the minute vessels of an inflamed part. 

 For that there exists, in every case of inflammation, 

 a certain amount of obstruction to the blood's pas- 

 sage through those vessels, is a conclusion which 

 the united testimony of pathologists, and of micro- 

 scopical observers, renders indisputable. And, the 

 existence of that obstruction being once admitted, 

 it follows as an inevitable consequence, that the 

 lateral pressure of the fluid detained behind ea<'h 

 impediment will be instantly increased in accord- 

 ance with the physical laws so recently applied to 

 the illustration of my experiments on the kidney. 



It therefore only remains for me to examine how 

 far the locally disordered physical condition of the 

 blood thus shown to be a constant and necessary 

 concomitant of inflammation, is referrible to the 

 causes, productive of the symptoms and effects, and 

 removable by the remedies found advantageous in 

 the treatment, of that disease. And if I succeed in 

 showing that this physical disorder of the blood 

 corresponds in all these essential characteristics with 



