26o Iiiflamuwtion. 



focus of infection so that their toxines might be restrained or ren- 

 dered in some measure inert, or if the animal body be especially 

 well provided with bactericidal substances, the course of the disease 

 would be protracted and there would be time for the tissue to set 

 into activity some or all of the reactions belonging to the inflam- 

 matory process. Inflammation may therefore, as the combined man- 

 ifestation of a number of defensive efforts directed against harm- 

 ful agencies, be looked upon as a curative process. When the forces 

 brought into activity succeed in eliminating the source of harm the 

 inflanmiation reaches in a relative measure its physiological termi- 

 nation (Diirk ) ; when, however, the reaction directed to the removal 

 of harmful influences is not successful in elimijiating them, when, 

 perhaps, the latter multiply in the system, the organism perishes in 

 spite of the inflammation, not necessarily because of the inflamma- 

 tion but because of the infection or intoxication, or possibly actually 

 because of the inflammatory reaction from the series of functional 

 disturbances of the organs resulting from its onset. 



The Phenomena of Inflammation, — From the earliest centuries 

 of our era, when the Roman physicians Celsus and Galen at- 

 tempted to formulate a conception of inflammation, there have 

 been recognized as cardinal symptoms of the process in the 

 grossly visible parts of the living body: increased heat, redness, 

 szvellinj:^- and increased sensifiTcness of the inflamed part (calor. 

 rubor, tumor, dolor), to which may be added disturbance of 

 fnncfion {fnnctio Jccsa) as a fifth. These fundamental symptoms 

 are, it is true, clearly appreciable in most acute, that is, rapidly 

 developed, inflammations of the skin and mucous membranes ; 

 but they are not invariably to be noted in the entire course of the 

 process. The older the inflammation becomes, the more likely are 

 these features to»be lost one after another ; and a chronic inflamma- 

 tion beginning gradually and continuing in low grade may not show 

 anv of them. Moreover the supposition that internal organs in in- 

 flammation show the same intense redness, swelling, increase of 

 temperature, and increased sensibility to pain, is only partly correct ; 

 and here too the chronic inflammations are especially likely riot to 

 be characterized by such phenomena. 



In the efifort to analyze the nature of inflammation from an 

 anatomical standpoint modern studies, have furnished definite ex- 

 planations of the above mentioned symptoms of Galen and have 

 given sufficient insight into the inflammatory process to afiford a 

 fairlv precise knowledge of the character of the changes and the 

 methods followed bv the tissues in their inflammatory reactions to 



