126 INFLAMMATION. 



inferred in advance of the long line of careful experiments which fiimlly 

 led to the demonstration. 



The importance of this protective power of the body cells and body 

 fluids is not exhausted with their gerniicidal action. For not less sig- 

 nificant is the role which these may assume in the establishment of other 

 phases of immunity to the incursion of micro-organisms. This will be 

 considered later in the general survey of the infectious maladies (p. 175). 



If now one seek for ways in which the other exudates, serum, and 

 fibrin may be useful to the individual, it is obvious that in the dilution 

 of locally engendered poisons and in their removal from a vulnerable 

 region the fluid may at times be beneficial. Fibrin, too, by closing inflam- 

 matory foci, through temporary adhesions, or by the sealing of absorbent 

 surfaces, may limit the extension of injurious agents, as is so frequently 

 the case in local infectious injuries in the peritoneal and pleural cavities. 

 That the regeneration and repair of tissue which may be associated with 

 or follow the more active phases of inflammation are, as a rule, beneficent, 

 is not doubtful. 



There is, of course, another side to the matter. For new cicatricial 

 tissues which have formed in the process of repair may be so situated as 

 to cause serious impairment of functional performance or even fatal 

 strictures. The gathering of leucocytes, too, may be so excessive and 

 their proliferation so extreme as to lead to delayed healing or to serious 

 exhaustion from suppuration. But notwithstanding these irregularities 

 and failures there seems to be good reason for the belief that, on the 

 whole, the processes involved in inflammation are conservative, and, 

 within the limitations which may be set by the varied and changing con- 

 ditions of injury, tend to maintain the welfare and sustain the life of the 

 individual. 



CHARACTERIZATION OF THE INFLAMMATORY PROCESS. 



The general conception of inflammation which we have just set forth 

 looks beyond the gross manifestations of disordered function and altered 

 structure, by which it was originally marked, and beyond the complex 

 and varied expressions of aberrant cell activities, with which our later 

 science has mostly dealt, to the fundamental qualities of living substance. 

 And thus at last, with the heart of the subject in view, a characterization 

 of inflammation becomes possible which is suggestive and useful, though 

 it may not indeed be final. Perhaps among many such characterizations, 

 that of Adami ' is on the whole the most clear and precise, and with him 



1 For a fuller consideration of inflammation from the point of view which in general 

 is here adopted, one may consult the excellent article on "Inflammation " by Adami in 

 Allbutt's "System of Medicine," vol. i., p. 54. 



In Thoma's work on "General Pathology," vol. i., is a clear exposition of the vari- 

 ous processes concerned in inflammation, with a fuller recognition than is commonly 

 accorded to them of the mechanical factors involved. In both of these works the more 

 important bibliography may be found. 



For bibliography and critical resume of studies on pathological organization, in- 

 flammation, etc., see Borst, Lubarsch and Ostertag's Ergebnisse, Jahrg. iv., for 1897, 

 p. 461. See also references under Regeneration, page 94, and under Tumors, page :J02, 



