234 ON THE EARLY STAGES OF INFLAMMATION 
the soft parts of one of the thighs were divided to the bone, and a small 
piece of mustard was placed on one of the webs of that foot. An hour after- 
wards, on removing the mustard, I saw to my great surprise that the small 
area on which it had lain was red to the naked eye, and that its capillaries, 
examined microscopically, contained abundance of closely packed corpuscles, 
while in surrounding parts the blood was in the same condition as before 
the experiment, viz. of pretty healthy aspect. In other words, well-marked 
inflammatory congestion had been produced by the mustard, and I after- 
wards found that the same thing occurred in a limb completely severed 
from the body.! 
This fact of course completely eliminated variations in the calibre of the 
vessels and consequent changes in the circulation from among the causes of 
congestion, and demonstrated conclusively its independence of the central 
organs of the nervous system. Further, it presented a very good opportunity 
for studying the state of the blood in healthy and inflamed parts, unaccom- 
panied by the effects of rapid movement. In subsequent similar experiments, 
it was found that the corpuscles were not brought to the irritated area by any- 
thing that indicated a mutual attraction between the former and the latter, 
but were simply carried along by slight accidental movements of the blood, 
such as are caused by post mortem contractions of the arteries, and instead 
of moving with facility, as in other parts, stuck when they arrived in the vessels 
of the area, in consequence of undue adhesiveness. The accumulation of the 
corpuscles was never to such an extent as in cases in which the heart was driving 
the blood through the part, but it affected the arterial and venous branches as 
well as the capillaries. Thus, if a large vein happened to run through the spot 
upon which the mustard was placed, it became in time choked with a crimson 
mass of corpuscles in that part of its extent which lay beneath the mustard ; 
but immediately beyond, in both directions, the blood in it contained no more 
than the usual proportion of corpuscles, or sometimes considerably less; and 
these moved freely to and fro when the web was touched, whereas those within 
the area remained fixed. This proved that the cause of the accumulation of the 
corpuscles did not reside specially in the capillaries, and also showed distinctly 
that it could not be explained by mere abnormal adhesiveness of the vascular 
parietes, which was, I understand, the view entertained by the late Dr. Marshall 
Hall ; for supposing the walls of the vessels to experience such a change, which 
* Mr. Paget, to whom I mentioned this experiment, has informed me that the fact that stasis may 
be induced by application of irritant substances to the frog’s foot after the arrest of the circulation by 
ligature of the thigh, had been previously discovered by Dr. H. Weber of Giessen (Miiller’s Archiv. 
1852), and that Schuler of Glarus had afterwards ascertained that the same thing occurs in an amputated 
limb (vide Wurzburg Verhandlungen,1854). 
