TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 135 



incipient venous radicles the opposite and equally 

 important action of absorption, I mentioned at some 

 length the physical and anatomical facts which sup- 

 port these views. As regards the accomplishment 

 of the first action, it is, therefore, on the present 

 occasion, only necessary for me to state, that the 

 obstacles to the free passage of the arterial blood 

 cause that fluid, Avhen entering the capillaries, to 

 exert a certain amount of lateral pressure, by means 

 of which its albuminous portion is continually, 

 though slowly, exuding for the purposes of nutrition. 



While the streams of blood, having once entered 

 the most contracted point of the capillary blood- 

 vessels, so far from encountering causes of impedi- 

 ment, are facilitated in their course by the most 

 perfect mechanical arrangement of the sanguiferous 

 tubes, and consequently, like all other freely moving 

 currents, then begin to exercise a power of lateral 

 draught, and thus induce that preponderance of the 

 external pressure which causes the act of absorption. 



But it is impossible to advance a step further in 

 the study of the physiology or pathology of the cir- 

 culation until the term " capillaries" is clearly de- 

 fined, and some attempt is made to confine within 

 reasonable bounds their healthy powers and uses. 

 In an anatomical point of view, many eminent men 

 seem to think that the term " capillaries " should be 

 restricted to those cylindrical intermediate tubes 



vessels take no part whatever in the causation of either process; the 

 active power, which induces both effusion and absorption, being, in 

 the healthy state, wholly derived from the columns of blood con- 

 tained within those vessels. 



K 4 



