14 PRACTICE OF PHYSIC. 



panying those inflammations which have proved fatal, it is how- 

 ever probable, that like circumstances may have attended those 

 which were terminated by resolution, and may have contributed 

 to that event. It is in favour of this supposition that there are 

 instances of pneumonic inflammation terminating in a hydro- 

 thorax. 



SECT. IV. OF THE 11EMOTE CAUSES OF INFLAMMATION. 



CCLXII. The remote causes of inflammation may be re- 

 duced to five heads. 



1. The application of stimulant substances ; among which are 

 to be reckoned the action of fire, or burning. 



2. External violence operating mechanically in wounding, 

 bruising, compressing, or overstretching the parts. 



3. Extraneous substances lodged in any part of the body, ir- 

 ritating by their chemical acrimony or mechanical form, or com- 

 pressing by their bulk or gravity. 



4. Cold, in a certain degree, not sufficient immediately to pro- 

 duce gangrene. " How this may precisely operate, I will not 

 pretend to say ; I think difficulties attend every theory which 

 has been proposed ; I here consider the fact. As heat has its 

 limits, so here the intensity of the cold is to be regarded. To 

 what degree below the freezing point it may go, I would not 

 decide ; but somewhat below the freezing point is the common 

 cause of chilblains. Every more intense degree of cold, that 

 does not immediately produce gangrene, stupifying the part 

 and stopping all motion of the fluids, operates by producing 

 an inflammation, which is sometimes recoverable, but sometimes 

 followed by the gangrenous state." 



5. An increased impetus of the blood determined to a par- 

 ticular part. 



It will not be difficult to understand how these remote ca'ises, 

 singly, or in concurrence, produce the proximate cause of in- 

 flammation. 



CCLXIII. It does not appear that, in different cases of in- 

 flammation, there is any difference in the state of the proximate 

 cause, except in the degree of it ; and, though some difference 

 of inflammation may arise from the difference of the remote 



