TREATMENT" OF INFLAMMATION. 171 



condition of the blood so often alluded to, and which 

 is, in some degree, always present in that disease, 

 are clearly referrible to that co-existing physical 

 cause. Some remarks on the connection between 

 the amount of increase in the lateral pressure of the 

 capillary blood-columns, and the production of each 

 effect, will interfere less with the general argument 

 if deferred for a short time. 



It now only remains to consider how far the 

 remedies found useful in the treatment of inflam- 

 mation are calculated to remove that local disorder 

 of the circulation which invariably accompanies, and 

 which I suppose to be identical with, that disease. 

 The general principles of the treatment will be more 

 fully discussed hereafter; but it is impossible to 

 avoid noticing how closely the measures sanctioned 

 by the experience of ages accord with the therapeutic 

 indications which spring directly from the patho- 

 logical views now advanced, as to the nature of 

 inflammation. For, with the exception of mercury 

 and a few other articles of the rnateria niedica, of 

 whose mode of operation we are wholly ignorant, 

 the remedies employed with success in the treatment 

 of inflammation, will all be found to act by restoring 

 the natural balance of the pressures acting on either 

 surface of the capillary blood-vessels. Now the 

 most important pathological phenomenon which re- 

 sults from the existence of this disease, and the 

 prevention and removal of which constitutes the 

 chief object of our treatment, is the effusion into 

 the adjacent cellular tissue of the serous and fibri- 

 nous portions of the blood. This effusion I have 



