140 ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF 



from those taught by that sagacious and accom- 

 plished physician. 



Cullen's doctrine, of a spasm of the excrcmc 

 vi'cls, which, as an occasional predisposing or ex- 

 citing cause of inflammation, must, I think, be to a 

 certain extent adopted, will be more conveniently con- 

 sidered in a subsequent part of this communication. 



The celebrated work of John Hunter, which, even 

 to this day, influences the opinions of many eminent 

 writers on inflammation, and which must ever be 

 studied with respect and diligence as embodying the 

 matured views of a most able and experienced man, 

 does not, so far at least as I can judge, throw any 

 direct light on the nature of the disease. His 

 practical precepts are doubtless most excellent, and 

 many of the pathological principles which he deduced 

 from his careful and prolonged observation of disease 

 evince the deepest reflection and the highest powers 

 of generalisation. But his views, both of the 

 healthy and diseased actions of the body, are so 

 deeply tinged with the mysticism of the vitalists, 

 that their unlimited adoption would be equivalent 

 to a total prohibition of all further progress in this 

 important department of pathology. I shall only 

 add that, though Hunter is generally considered as 

 adverse to the idea of obstruction constituting the 

 essential cause of inflammation, the passage on which 

 this conclusion rests is in itself so ambiguous, and so 

 much at variance with the remarks immediately 

 following it, that the authority of his name may just 

 as fairly be placed on one side of the question as on 

 the other. 



