ON INFLAMMATION 



'35 



much in evidence in the daily life of every organised 

 creature and of every medical practitioner. 



Engaged, as we have been, in the study of the nervous 

 system in many of its less familiar aspects for many years, 

 we have, when coming to consider the subject of inflamma- 

 tion in the light of the views of which we have become 

 possessed, been much struck, in the perusal of its litera- 

 ture, with the absence as a factor in the production and 

 evolution of the process of inflammation, of any but the 

 merest inferential reference to the nervous system and the 

 local nerve elements. This omission will, therefore, we 

 think, warrant us in endeavouring to supply whatever 

 information and data we can, in order to call attention to 

 the circumstance, and, if possible, to broaden and deepen, 

 and make more exact, the entire rationale of this complex 

 foundation and far-reaching morbid phenomenon. 



As a rule, we say we have noticed little or no importance 

 attached to the influence of nervine factors in the produc- 

 tion and course of inflammatory phenomena, and for this 

 we can only, or mainly, suggest as a reason that the micro- 

 scopic research to which it has been so searchingly and 

 continuously subjected has failed to reveal the nervine 

 influences at work in the regulation of the blood circulatory 

 behaviour, so engrossingly interesting to the novice as 

 well as the veteran observer. 



It has thus, we think, been too much taken for granted 

 that the visible phenomena comprise the whole phenomena 

 of which this diseased process is made up, and hence the 

 natural curiosity of the observer has been appeased, and 

 the necessary still further research been prevented. 



The behaviour of the blood vasculature and its con- 

 tents has thus been most exhaustively observed, and the 

 observations have been repeated and tested for every 

 generation of physiologists and pathologists during many 

 years, until we now take for granted that research in this 

 field is no longer necessary, and are almost called upon to 

 believe that the last word has been said on the subject. 



The classical experiment on the web of the frog's foot 

 demonstrates a succession of vascular vaso-motor and 

 blood circulatory changes of a most apparent and con- 

 sequential character, which have only to be seen to be 



