1862.] 261 



liquor sanguinis, it is incumbent on me to show how and why this 

 modification occurs. 



Whilst it must be admitted that the cellular elements of the tissues 

 have the power of imbibing and utilizing fluid plasma when it is 

 brought into immediate apposition to them, there is not convincing 

 evidence that these elements exercise any positive educing force upon 

 this fluid while it remains within the vessels. Still less is there 

 evidence that, of two cells situated the one nearer to, the other more 

 remote from the vessel, the latter has any attractive power superior 

 to that of the former, which, to secure its nutrition on the theory of 

 positive attraction, it must have, for the plasma attracted by the 

 nearer cell would remain in the possession of that cell till removed 

 from it by a superior force. 



The law of diosmosis suffices to explain the supply of fluid plasma 

 to the cellular elements without recurrence to the hypothesis of a 

 positive attractive force resident in the cells themselves. It is im- 

 possible to doubt that such structures as capillaries are diosmotic. 



The more braced the condition of the minute vessels the less dios- 

 mosis, and vice versd. It is not during contraction of the minute 

 vessels produced by irritants that stasis occurs, but during the relax- 

 ation consequent on such contraction, a relaxation which must be 

 attributed to exhaustion of their irritability by the stimulus applied* 

 This relaxation permits the diosmotic escape of fluid from the vessels* 

 causing an inspissation of the plasma within them, and consequent 

 adhesion of the corpuscles constituting inflammatory stasis. This 

 escape of fluid may be termed primary exudation. 



The muscular paralysis in question is not necessarily connected 

 with neural paralysis, since it is producible in parts which, though 

 abounding in contractile elements, are without nervous tissue, as, for 

 example, in the umbilical cord. In fact the more completely the 

 nervous influence is removed and destroyed the more sensitive does 

 the muscular tissue become to irritants. 



Neural paralysis does undoubtedly play a part in inflammation. 

 Whilst the nerve-influence is exercised over a part, it affords a pro- 

 tective influence which renders the contractile elements less sensitive 

 to local irritants, and consequently less prone to that absolute mus- 

 cular paralysis which precedes primary exudation. But the neural 

 paralysis does not necessarily involve absolute muscular paralysis, 



