THEORY OF INFLAMMATION. 1081 



pounds, they are almost sure to desert him, and 

 resort to some unscrupulous empiric, who men- 

 daciously takes to himself the credit of all the 

 recoveries performed by nature, and impudently 

 calls them cures. 



Theory of Inflammation. 



IT was maintained by Boerhaave and Gaubius* 

 that the proximate cause of inflammation is a 

 viscid state of the blood, and an obstruction to 

 its free passage through the capillaries of the 

 diseased part. But this simple and almost self- 

 evident view of the subject was rejected by 

 Cullen, who observes, that u the phenomena of 

 inflammation all concur in shewing, that there is 

 an increased impetus of blood in the vessels of 

 the affected part : that as the proximate cause 

 of fever is a spasm affecting the extreme vessels, 

 and as every considerable inflammation is at- 

 tended with symptoms of fever, it seems probable 

 that a spasm of the extreme vessels is also the 

 immediate cause of topical inflammations : that 

 the phlogistic diathesis consists in an increased 

 tone, or contractility, and perhaps in an increased 

 contraction of the muscular fibres of the whole 

 arterial system." (Practice of Physic, Sections 

 239. 243. 247.) 



That inflammation and fever are modifications 



