TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 197 



freely into the veins, and thus maintains the unna- 

 tural amount of pressure of the arterial columns. 

 When enumerating, in a former paper, the natural 

 obstacles to the circulation, I mentioned the contrac- 

 tility of the smaller vessels as one of the most con- 

 siderable, and represented it as a power opposed to, 

 and constantly resisting, the action of the heart. 

 The phenomena of a languishing circulation, which 

 were first described by Spallanzani, are, I think, 

 almost conclusive on this point ; for, in these cases, 

 the capillary blood-columns, during that slow and 

 feeble action of the heart which precedes death, are 

 seen to advance synchronously with each ventricular 

 contraction, and to recede immediately afterwards, 

 the alternate preponderance of the impelling and 

 repelling forces giving the blood an oscillatory move- 

 ment. It is true that the elasticity of the tissues 

 may, to a certain extent, co-operate with their con- 

 tractility in the production of this effect ; but the 

 influence of either property upon the passage of the 

 blood through them must be the same. Each must 

 necessarily oppose it cannot assist the circulation 

 of the blood. The possession of contractility by the 

 minute blood-vessels being, then, incontestable, it 

 might naturally have been expected that they will 

 also be subject to the physiological and pathological 

 laws common to all other forms of contractile tissue. 

 But, since the decline of Cullen's doctrine of a spasm 

 of the extreme vessels as the proximate cause of fever 

 and inflammation, there has been an evident disposi- 

 tion to regard the capillaries as differing materially 

 in their vital endowments and susceptibilities from 



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