TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 173 



The result of this examination is, I think, the 

 perfect demonstration of the truth of my proposition 

 -that the morbidly increased lateral pressure of 

 the capillary blood-columns, which invariably ac- 

 companies inflammation, is directly referrible to the 

 causes, productive of the symptoms and effects, and 

 relieved by the measures adopted for the treatment 

 of that disease. What then, I ask, constitutes the 

 distinction between the group of pathological phe- 

 nomena designated by the word inflammation, and 

 the local disorder in the physical condition of the 

 blood which occasions those symptoms and effects ? 

 Or, which more correctly represents the disease ? 

 For, in the one case, we have described a deviation 

 from the natural state of the local circulation, which 

 can be shoAvn to constitute the connecting link be- 

 tween the operation of the causes, and the production 

 of the effects of a certain pathological condition: 

 while, in the other, we are told to recognise, in 

 certain visible effects of an imperceptible and un- 

 known cause, a disease the essential nature, seat and 

 origin of which are buried in obscurity. I contend 



o 



therefore, that the peculiar physical disorder of the 

 blood contained in the minute vessels of the affected 

 part, constitutes that central link in the chain of 

 causes and effects which was required to complete 

 our knowledge of the pathology of inflammation. 

 And by the recognition of this as the morbid con- 

 dition essentially constituting that disease, much of 

 the darkness now enveloping the causation of nu- 

 merous pathological phenomena will be dispelled, 

 many conflicting opinions and modes of treatment. 





