5i8 THE THIRD HUXLEY LECTURE 



on the other hand, were not fully detached till a later and variable period ; and 

 so long as they remained they perpetuated the formation of pus in the depths 

 of the wound, the retention of which by a dry dressing long continued would 

 have involved disastrous consequences. 



Thus, under the best possible management which the knowledge of those 

 days permitted, suppuration was an inevitable attendant on nearly every wound ; 

 and so long as it continued there was no security against the advent of one of 

 the various specially unhealthy conditions, then quite inexplicable, which might 

 ruin the results of the most beautifully planned and executed operations. 



The very liberal regulations of the University and College of Surgeons of 

 Edinburgh enabled me, on the expiry of my house-surgeoncy at the infirmary, 

 to start a course of lectures on surgery, qualifying for the examinations of 

 both bodies. The first subject with which I should have to deal was inflam- 

 mation. The stasis of the blood in the capillaries, as the result of irritating 

 applications, had been long studied in the transparent web of the frog's foot ; 

 and Paget had described similar phenomena in the wing of the mammalian 

 bat. The latest contribution to the subject had been made by Wharton Jones, 

 one of my former teachers at University College, who had received the Astley 

 Cooper Prize for an essay in which observations were recorded leading him to 

 the conclusion that the cause of the arrest of the red corpuscles in the capil- 

 laries of an inflamed part was contraction of the arterioles. According to this 

 view, which he supported by very neatly executed experiments, the narrowing 

 of the tubes of supply caused sluggishness of flow in the flelds of capillaries 

 supplied by them, and this permitted the red discs to aggregate and so obstruct 

 the channels. 



There could be no more doubt of the trustworthiness of Wharton Jones's 

 observations than of the beauty of the drawings with which he illustrated them. 

 But their relation to inflammatory stasis was not so clear ; and I sought further 

 light upon the subject by investigations of my own. My first attempt in this 

 way may be described somewhat in detail. It occurred to me that it would be 

 interesting, instead of the powerful irritants which had been usually applied 

 in such investigations, to try warm water, the mildest of all stimulants to the 

 human body. Having fixed a young frog upon a plate of glass on the stage 

 of a microscope tilted at an angle of about 45°, one of the webs being extended 

 in the field of view, I watched the effect of throwing a few drops of warm water 

 upon the web by means of a syringe. The application of the water was little 

 more than momentary ; and as it flowed off immediately from the sloping 

 surface, I could at once observe the result. This filled me with astonishment, 

 and at first I could not understand what I saw. All appearance of blood- 



