RATIO SYMPTOMATUM. 1087 



capillaries, and diminishes their contractility. The 

 consequence is, that they are dilated by means 

 of the vis a tergo, engorged with blood, and tume- 

 faction induced. In the mean time, owing to the 

 weakness and diminished cohesion of the vessels, 

 tliere is an effusion of serum, lymph, and some- 

 times of red blood, into the cellular tissue or other 

 surrounding parts, by which the swelling is still 

 further increased. And as the onward motion 

 of the blood is impeded, it is prevented from 

 receiving the vitalizing influence of respiration ; 

 by which its nutritive properties are impaired : 

 so that the animal heat sent to the part in com- 

 bination with arterial blood, is not properly united 

 with the solids, as during health, but given out 



produces directly opposite effects on persons of sanguine tempe- 

 rament, that after the muscles have been exhausted by over 

 exertion, or an excessive expenditure of vital energy, they are far 

 more liable to rheumatic inflammation than at other times, in 

 short, that the morbid effects of cold are in proportion to its 

 influence in retarding the circulation of the part on which it 

 operates. The more rapidly caloric is abstracted, the higher is 

 the temperature of the body at which the loss becomes fatal, be- 

 cause it is not supplied by respiration. It may also be observed, 

 that the only difference between rheumatism and neuralgia is, 

 that the one is confined chiefly to the investing membranes of 

 the muscles, while the other depends on inflammation of the 

 nerves, but is sometimes united with rheumatism, which is then 

 more painful than usual. They are both to be treated by gradu- 

 ally restoring the free circulation of good arterial blood through 

 the affected parts, and not by debilitating medicines. The modern 

 practice of dividing the inflamed nerve in tic douloureux, should 

 be shunned as a barbarous and unnecessary operation. 



