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they call superfluous sap. Fortunately their 

 practice, like that of physic, is not deduced 

 from the theory ; for the very method they 

 take to deprive the branch of sap, gives it 

 more. If any person unprejudiced will 

 think but for a moment, and consider the 

 phenomena of inflammation,the tumefaction, 

 and redness, and the remote causes, burn- 

 ing, beating, bruising, compressing, over- 

 stretching, overloading, &c. and also the 

 methods of cure, he will be convinced that 

 the proximate cause is quite the reverse of 

 what is now taught, and that it is a 

 diminished action of the vessels of the part, 

 at least that their action is weaker, in 

 proportion, than the other parts of the 

 sanguiferous system ; and from this cause, 

 all the phenomena of inflammation can be 

 explained, in one progressive and connected 

 series of cause and effect, and all the 



