242 



Studies on Inflammation. 



By Professor Stricker, o/Vienna.^ 



1. — On the present state or our knowledge of 

 Inflammation. 



" Inflammation is so interwoven ■with the 

 theory and practice of medicine . . . that 

 in all ages it has been made the pivot upon 

 which the medical philosophy of the time lias 

 revolved." — J. H. Bennett, Treatise on In- 

 flammation. 



Microscopical inquiry has had the most important influ- 

 ence on the development of our knowledge of inflammation. 

 Every step in the former department has advanced the 

 latter, and each error there has made itself felt here. But 

 beyond everything else it has been in accordance with the 

 variations in our views as to the production and the life of the 

 cell that the doctrine of inflammation has been modified and 

 developed. 



Rokitansky introduced into his valuable illustrations of 

 inflammation the doctrine of cell-genesis of Schleiden and 

 Schwann ; Goodsir and Redfern made their fundamental 

 studies, after Schwann's example, on cartilage, and the results 

 they gained thereby came back to us across the sea. 



The attention paid to the history of development and the 

 extension of the connective-tissue theory became, through the 

 labours of Schwann, Reichert, Henle, and Virchow, the prop 

 of Virchow's school. 



Finally, the last movement — the reforms in the cell-doctrine 

 as initiated by Max Schultze, and Briicke — influence us still 

 to this day, and the more so since Recklinghausen has 

 directed one current of this movement into the path of the 

 pathological investigation of tissues. 



But in proportion as the excellence of instruments lighted 

 us into the depths of the subject, the value assigned to 

 general macroscopic appearances became weakened. In place 

 of the idea " inflammation" formed at the bed-side and in the 

 dead-house, and relating to a combination of appearances, we 

 obtained definitions of more minute occurrences in the struc- 

 tural elements. So far as these definitions related to the life 

 of diseased elements, a progress was thereby obtained which 

 was satisfactory to the thinker. In an inflamed organ the 



' ' Studien aiis der Instituten fur Experiinentelle Pathologic in Wien aus 

 dt'in Jahre,' 18G9. 



