1082 DIFFERENT THEORIES. 



of the same radical disease, and that both are 

 generally attended with increased action of the 

 heart, cannot be denied. It ifiight even be said, 

 that inflammation is a local fever, and that idio- 

 pathic fever is a general inflammation : for they 

 are both ushered in with more or less of a cold 

 stage, which is followed by a preternatural eleva- 

 tion of temperature. Nor is it less certain, that 

 all extensive or serious local inflammations are 

 attended with general fever, the leading symptoms 

 of which are essentially the same as if produced 

 by malaria. 



The opinion that local inflammation depends 

 on increased action of the capillaries, and the 

 circulation of a greater amount of blood through 

 them than in the healthy state, was embraced by 

 John Hunter, Abernethy, Richerand, Gendrin, 

 Parry, Kaltenbrunner, James, and Lawrence.* 

 On the other hand, the views of Boerhaave 

 and Gaubius have been ably defended by Vacca, 

 Allen, Dr. Lubbock, Dr. Philip, Dr. Hastings, 

 Dr. Billing, and some others. The most im- 

 portant experiments on the subject are those of 



* The opinion of Mr. Lawrence, that inflammation depends on 

 increased action of the affected part, seems to have been confirmed 

 by the experiment of simultaneously opening a vein in both arms 

 of a patient who had inflammation in one hand, when a much 

 larger amount of blood flowed from the diseased side than 

 from the other. But may not the vein or the orifice have been 

 larger in the one case than in the other ? However this may have 

 been, it is certainly not true that blood flows more freely from a 



