432 LECTURE XVII. 



exudation is regarded as an immediate consequence of 

 the hypersemia, and in which it is assumed that inflam- 

 mation, when it has once declared itself, is characterized 

 by the presence of a substance more or less foreign to 

 the natural composition of the part. The only question 

 is whether the hyperaemia really forms the actual com- 

 mencement of these processes. 



If inflammation were necessarily dependent upon hy- 

 persemia, you can well imagine that it would be logically 

 impossible to speak of inflammations in parts which do 

 not stand in an immediate relation to vessels. .We could 

 not imagine an inflammation taking place at a certain 

 distance from a vessel. It would be completely impossi- 

 ble to speak of an inflammation of the cornea (excepting 

 as occurring at its border) ; of an inflammation of car- 

 tilage (excepting as occurring in the parts immediately 

 adjoining the bone) ; or of an inflammation in the 

 internal substance of a tendon. But if we compare the 

 processes which present themselves in these parts with 

 those which are ordinarily seen in inflamed parts, the 

 result is unquestionably that the same inflammatory 

 processes may occur everywhere alike, and that the 

 changes in the vascular parts can in no essential parti- 

 cular be distinguished from those which take place in the 

 non-vascular ones. 



The term inflammatory (i. e., according to the common 

 definition, fibrinous) exudation, has, as you are aware, 

 been somewhat loosely applied, inasmuch as it has been 

 taken to include different kinds of exudation (fibrinous 

 and non-fibrinous) furnished by different processes, upon 

 all of which, however, the common name of inflamma- 

 tion has been bestowed. When, for example, inflam- 

 mations of mucous membranes are spoken of, it is not 

 generally supposed, that the mucous membrane will 

 furnish a fibrinous exudation. We are indeed ac* 



