TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 209 



greater or less portion of their extent contracted, un- 

 yielding, and thus rendered incapable of transmitting 

 the blood accumulated in the former ; while, in hy- 

 pertrophy, both arteries and capillaries seem to dilate 

 nearly in the same proportion, and the arterial blood 

 being thus enabled rapidly to escape, the intensity 

 of its pressure becomes very much diminished. And 

 this circumstance enables us to understand how, 

 Srdly, hypertrophy and inflammation differ in their 

 effects. In the former case, from the cause just 

 mentioned, the lateral pressure of the blood entering 

 the capillaries is very slightly increased, and a more 

 active performance of the natural process of nutritive 

 effusion is the only effect induced. This increased 

 effusion may, in one part, furnish more material for 

 a secretion ; at other points it will supply the tissues 

 with an unusual quantity of nutritive fluid ; and 

 when a gland is the organ unduly supplied with 

 blood, both secretion and nutrition will proceed with 

 inordinate activity. But in inflammation the lateral 

 pressure of the capillary blood-columns is much in- 

 creased, and it therefore presents, in its effects, a 

 more marked deviation from their natural functions. 

 The quantity of effused matter is more considerable, 

 and instead of a solution of albumen, the fibrinous 

 portion of the liquor sanguinis is also effused. As 

 the processes of healthy or nutritive, and morbid or 

 inflammatory effusion, are, however, both referrible 

 to the same immediate cause, inflammation and hy- 

 pertrophy virtually differ rather in degree than in 

 nature ; the greater intensity of the expelling pres- 

 sure, and the more considerable extent of effusing 



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