SPECIFIC INFLAMMATION. 131 



endeavours to prove the existence of at least a local j^redisposi- 

 tion in each single case ; and although he has not succeeded in 

 driving the arguments of humoral pathology wholly out of the 

 field, he compels us to admit that some tumours at least 

 originate in a local irritation. As examples we may take 

 epithelioma of the lower lip, due to the persistent irritation of 

 a tobacco-pipe held between the teeth; so also a number of 

 sarcomata caused by pressure; enchondromata of the bones 

 startino; from the seat of fractures, &c. Ao^ain — 



2. The less decidedly the remaining cardinal signs of inflam- 

 mation, such as pain, redness, rise of temperature, are associated 

 with the growth, the more nearly does it approach the nature of 

 a tumour. The practitioner's attention is roused and he is led 

 at once to suspect some inflammatory complication, when a 

 tumour causes pain, or when an active hypera3mia with rise of 

 temperature accompanies its development. 



3. The less a new formation contains within itself the condi- 

 tions requisite for perfect recovery, the less does it participate in 

 ihe nature of inflammation. Spontaneous cure is a very distinc- 

 tive peculiarity of inflammatory processes. Our conception of a 

 tumour implies that it should continue to grow if left to itself; 

 and even should its size remain stationary, that it should at all 

 events exhibit a. certain degree of permanence. This proposition 

 may be formulated in conjunction with (1) in some such terms as 

 these : inflammations do not originate spontaneously, though they 

 get well of themselves ; tumours arise spontaneously, but are not 

 susceptible of spontaneous cm'e. I am well aware that such a 

 formula as this is very far from being axiomatic. Pedunculated 

 tumours are often spontaneously detached ; nay even the spon- 

 taneous expulsion of entire nodules of cancer has been known to 

 occur. 



If we inquire into the natural grounds of this distinction, 

 almost instinctively applied by the practitioner, we fiild them 

 in the circumstances of histological development. Inflamma- 

 tory products are generated at the seat of irritation mainly by 

 the accumulation of the mobile cells of the conjoint vascular 

 and connective-tissue system ; this accounts for the rapidity 

 with which they appear, and for hardly a trace of their presence 

 being left when they disappear ; the development of tumours is 

 more nearly in accordance with the laws of normal growth; 



