460 OF NUTRITION. 



causing adhesion of their walls, and obliteration of their tubes ; or when a 

 new growth absorbs into itself all the nutritive materials which the Blood 

 supplies.* 



VIII. Abnormal Forms of the Nutritive Process. 



606. Under the preceding head, we have considered the chief variations in 

 the degree of activity, that are witnessed in the ordinary or normal conditions 

 of the Nutritive process, that is, those conditions in which the products are 

 adapted, by their similarity of character, to replace those which have been 

 removed by disintegration. But we have now to consider those forms of this 

 process, in which the products are abnormal, being different from the tissues 

 they ought to replace. We shall confine ourselves to a brief examination of 

 the two most important of these states : that which is termed Inflammation ; 

 and that which gives rise to Tubercular deposit. The former results from an 

 excess of the plastic element in the blood ; the latter from a depraved condition 

 of it, whereby its plasticity is impaired or destroyed. Notwithstanding all the 

 attention which has been given to the state of the vessels in Inflammation, a 

 careful consideration of its phenomena, with the light which recent investiga- 

 tions have thrown upon these, leads us to attach comparatively little importance 

 to this, and to seek for the essential character of the process elsewhere. The 

 researches of Addison, Williams, Barry, Gulliver, Andral and others, all seem 

 to point to the following conclusions. 1. That there is a peculiar afflux or 

 determination of the White Corpuscles of the Blood towards the inflamed 

 part. 2. That the total amount of these Corpuscles in the circulating blood 

 undergoes a great increase. 3. That the quantity of Fibrin in the Blood aug- 

 ments, in proportion to the extent and intensity of the Inflammation ; and this, 

 even when it was previously, from the influence of some other morbid condi- 

 tion, below the usual standard. With its quantity, its plasticity, or tendency 

 to organization, also increases in a healthy subject. Now when these facts are 

 compared together, and are connected with those formerly adduced, in regard 

 to the probable function of the White Corpuscles of the blood, they lead almost 

 irresistibly to the conclusion, that the process of Inflammation essentially con- 

 sists in an undue stagnation of these Corpuscles in the vessels of the part, an 

 excessive multiplication of them by the ordinary process of generation, and a 

 consequent over-production of Fibrin. By these changes, and by the results 

 which follow them, Inflammation may be distinguished from the various forms 

 of Hyperaemia and Congestion. To the results, then, we shall next direct our 

 attention. 



607. It may be inferred from various phenomena, that whilst the formative 

 power of the Blood is increased in Inflammation, that of the Tissues is dimin- 

 ished. Certainly this is the case in regard to the system at large, when febrile 

 irritation has been established ; for, notwithstanding the increased Plasticity of 

 the Blood, we see the body wasting, instead of increasing in vigour. And it 

 may be inferred, also, in regard to the tissues of the part affected, from the 

 tendency to Atrophy and Disintegration which they exhibit ; and which is 

 greater (leading even to the death of whole parts) in proportion as the inflam- 

 mation is more intense, and as the tendency to the deposit of new products is 

 the more decided. That a Stagnation of Blood takes place in the vessels of 

 the inflamed part, is another general fact, which throws some light upon the 

 nature of the process ; for this stagnation is obviously favourable to the trans- 

 udation of the fluid Plasma of the blood, through the walls of the vessels, into 



* See on this subject Dr. Williams's Principles of Medicine, Chap, iv.: to which the 

 Author is partly indebted lor the preceding paragraphs. 



