8 ON INFLAMMATION. 



natural state ; as when inflammation doevS not ter- 

 minate in re-solution, the inflamed part suppurates, 

 or matter is formed, and the wound could not 

 granulate or fill up if inflammation did not come 

 on ; and we favour this by stimulating applications. 

 In poll-evil we often pour them almost boiling hot 

 into the abscess, with the best effect. Inflammation 

 is necessary to remove extraneous substances from 

 any part of the body that cannot be conveniently 

 taken away by other means, as splinter of stakes, 

 briers, balls, dead pieces of bone, &c. Strangles 

 also appears to be a salutary eifect of nature to re- 

 lieve the constitution ; with this supposition we 

 favour her designs by the remedies recommended 

 in that disease. 



Inflammation may be divided into common and 

 specific. By common we mean what has been al- 

 ready described. Specific is one totally of a different 

 kind. This is illustrated in glanders, farcy, grease, 

 and inflammation of the eyes. The blood in these 

 diseases is under a peculiar morbid influence, or spe- 

 cific action ; for instance, the inflammation of 

 glanders differs from common inflammation, be- 

 cause the secretion of mucus from the nose is not 

 only increased, but altered in its qualit}'^, and ca- 

 pable of producing a disease similar to itself by 

 inoculation of the matter, drinking from the 

 same pail of water, transfusing the blood from a 



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