DIFFUSED OR GENERAL INFLAMMATION. 275 



There is another termination classed among the endings 

 of inflammation, but which we cannot view as lawfully 

 belonging to the list. It is named metastasis, and means 

 the change of place, or removal of inflammation from one 

 part to another. This evidently is not a termination, but a 

 change in situation. It is well seen in inflamed lungs. 

 The practitioner leaves his patient very bad at night ; he 

 comes next morning expecting to find the animal dead, but 

 is surprised to discover him apparently quite well. He is 

 rejoiced, but his eye accidentally rests upon the feet; the 

 horse stands oddly. An examination takes place, which 

 shows the animal has inflammation of the feet. The disease 

 has left the lungs to settle in the feet, and this change of 

 locality is called metastasis. 



The liability to these various terminations of inflamma- 

 tion is not the same in all parts of the body ; on the con- 

 trary, some are more prone to one, and others to a different 

 kind. Deep-seated parts, and the gi^eat serous cavities of 

 the body, appear peculiarly liable either to the adhesive 

 effects of inflammation, or to that modification of it which 

 produces effusion. The adhesion here implied entirely 

 differs from that already alluded to. It is seen when a 

 lung adheres to the walls of the chest, or one intestine to 

 another, and is always the result of inflammation. Effusion 

 really means dropsy, or w^ater poured forth upon the cessa- 

 tion of inflammation within the cavities of the abdomen or 

 chest. 



Ulceration used to be reckoned among the termination 

 of inflammation, but it, like sinuses, is the consequence of 

 a chronic kind of inflammation which is not now under con- 

 sideration : it is the result of unhealthy or imperfect in- 

 flammation, and its cure chiefly depends upon our being 

 able to excite active inflammation in the part affected. 



The causes of inflammation are said to be predisposing 

 and exciting, remote and proximate ; the points, however, 

 where one ends and the other begins, are by no means easy 

 to define. Such occasional causes which act by their out- 

 ward effects as stimulants, we can readily comprehend : but 

 the more remote agencies we are at a loss to explain. In- 

 flammations, and febrile affections generally, were wont to 

 be attributed to the effect of cold. Modern pathologists 



T 2 



