TREATMENT OF INFLAMMATION. 235 



passed over in silence. I repeat this explanation, 

 because I might otherwise be supposed to recognise, 

 in all cases of inflammation, none other than the 

 purely physical disorder of the blood, which arises 

 from the local obstruction to its passage through 

 the capillaries. 



The preceding remarks have had reference solely to 

 the treatment of acute or sthenic inflammation ; but, 

 before dismissing the subject, it is necessary to make 

 a few observations upon the management of the op- 

 posite forms of the disease. Chronic inflammation, 

 whether occurring primarily, or as the effect of an 

 acute inflammatory attack, is invariably connected 

 with a relaxed condition of the affected vessels; 

 and this impaired tone of the capillaries of the part 

 is, in the former class of cases, generally complicated 

 with a debilitated state of the constitution. Although, 

 therefore, this complaint undoubtedly presents a 

 tendency to effusion indicative of an unnatural in- 

 crease in the lateral pressure of the retarded blood- 

 columns, our attention must here be fixed rather 

 upon the defective tone of the contractile tissues 

 which occasions. that local retardation of the circula- 

 tion, than upon the physical disorder of the blood 

 resulting from its existence. The pathology of this 

 form of the disease is, indeed, correctly represented 

 by that doctrine of inflammation which refers its 

 causation to a relaxation of the coats of the capil- 

 laries, followed by an accumulation and tendency to 

 coagulation of the impeded blood. And the existence 

 of the slight impeding cause constituted by that 



