The Farmer's YeUriiia/ry Ad/viser. 



cofidetiSed liianual like the present. From the days of 

 ! Hippocrates inflain'mation has been recognized by redness, 

 heat, pain, and swelling, followed bj resolution or indura- 

 tion, suppuration, or gangrene. Such a definition is, how- 

 ever, sadly insufficient in view of modern discoveries as to 

 the different pliases of the inflammatory process. Redness 

 occurs in the transient blush, heat in the feverish system, 

 pain from simple passing nervous disorder, swelling from 

 dropsy, indui-ation from the formation of tumors, and gan- 

 grene from the blocking of blood-vessels or other exclusion 

 of blood and the means of nutrition from a part, and in no 

 one of these cases need there be an element of true inflam- 

 mation. Perhaps no definition can be given which will 

 cover all the phenomena of inflammation. 



INFLAIIMATION IN VASCULAB TISSUES. 



These phenomena, as seen in a transparent membrane like 

 the web of the frog's foot or the mesentery may be stated 

 as follows : 1st. Disturied circulation evinced by contrac- 

 tion, quickly followed by dilatation with elongation of the 

 capillary blood-vessels, and a rapid, followed by a slow, and 

 even oscillating or backward movement of the blood within 

 them, branching redness. 2d. The hlood-gloiules become 

 sticky and adhere together and to the walls of the capilla- 

 ries so as to block them in points. 3d. The fibrin of the 

 blood coagulates around these masses of globules, forming 

 points of complete obstruction, and constituting those minute 

 spots of deep redness which cannot be effaced, even for an 

 instant, by the pressure of the finger on inflamed skin. 4th. 

 The liquid parts of the blood ooze out in excess through 

 the capillary walls into the tissues, causing the swelling. 

 5th. Blood-globules and granules escape through the walls 

 of the vessels and degenerate into pus-cells or become the 

 centres for the growth of new tissue in the exudate. 6th. 

 The nuclei {cells) presiding over the nutrition, etc., have 



