174 CLASSICS OF MODERN SCIENCE 

 are foreign to the cartilages, and vice versa. 4th. We observe a 

 variety of different alterations in the texture of the pericardium, but 

 hardly ever in that of the heart itself ; it remains sound while the 

 other is inflamed. The ossification of the common membrane of the 

 red blood does not extend to the neighboring textures. 5th. When 

 the membrane of the bronchia is the seat of catarrh, the pleura is 

 hardly affected at all, and reciprocally in pleurisy the first is scarcely 

 ever altered. In peripneumonia, when an enormous infiltration in 

 the dead body shows the excessive inflammation that has existed dur- 

 ing life in the pulmonary texture, the serous and mucous surfaces 

 often appear not to have been affected. Those who open dead know 

 that they are frequently healthy in incipient phthisis. 6th. We speak 

 of a bad stomach, a weak stomach; this most commonly should be 

 understood as applying to the mucous surface only. Whilst this 

 secretes with difficulty the nutritive juices, without which digestion is 

 impaired, the serous surface exhales as usual its fluid, the muscular 

 coat continues to contract, etc. In ascites, in which the serous sur- 

 face exhales more lymph than in a natural state, the mucous often- 

 times performs its functions perfectly well, etc. 7th. All authors 

 have said much of the inflammation of the stomach, the intestines, 

 the bladder, etc. For myself, I believe that this disease rarely ever 

 affects at first the whole of any of these organs, except in the case 

 where poison or some other deleterious substance acts upon them. 

 There are for the mucous surface of the stomach and intestines, acute 

 and chronic catarrhs ; for the peritoneum serous inflammations ; per- 

 haps even for the layer of organic muscles that separates the two mem- 

 branes, there is a particular kind of inflammation, though we have 

 as yet hardly anything certain upon this point; but the stomach, the 

 intestines, and the bladder are not suddenly affected with these three 

 diseases. A diseased texture can affect those near it, but the primi- 

 tive affection seizes only upon one. I have examined a great num- 

 ber of bodies in which the peritoneum was inflamed either upon the 

 intestines, the stomach, the pelvis, or universally; now very often 

 when this affection is chronic, and almost always when it is acute, 

 the subjacent organs remain sound. I have never seen this mem- 

 brane exclusively diseased upon one organ, while that of neighbor- 

 ing ones remain untouched ; its affection is propagated more or less 

 remotely. I know not why authors have hardly ever spoken of its in- 



