38 DADD’S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 
eonse uence of our misguided notions of inflammation, anc ou 
want of knowledge of a suitable remedy to treat it. But a 
brighter day is dawning, and the antiquated notions of disease 
and its treatment are fast giving way to a more rational and suc 
cessful system ; and the day is not far distant when blood-letting 
for the cure of inflammation will be entirely abandoned. 
It is very gratifying to the author to be able to record that 
many of the progressiv2 medical writers of the present day are 
on the right side of Nature, teaching us that “she is ever busy, 
by the silent operation of her own forces, in the cure of disease ;” 
and they are inaugurating a very great and desirable revolution 
ia the theory and practice of human as well as veterinary mei- 
cine. 
Nature of Inflammation.—The physical characteristics of ja- 
flammation are, as I have just written, redness, heat, pain, and 
sometimes swelling. It is, and always was physiologically, oper- 
ating for the good of humanity and the inferior orders of creation. 
Its curative power none can dispute. We see it, in the form ofa 
biush, on the cheek of offended humanity. Friction, injuries, 
poisons and disease, etc., excite Nature to hoist the symbol of dis 
tress—inflammation. She calls loudly for help, but she does not 
always get it; and instead of acknowledging her autocracy, and 
furnishing what she wants to use in her own way, viz.: the water, 
vil, and wine of the ancient Samaritans, we offer fire, knife, and 
poison. 
Inflammation being an exalted condition of local arterial cir- 
culation, it can only be excited by some mental] emotion, injury, 
loss of function, or by what is known as disease, in parts adjacent 
or remote from its seat. Hence, al! diseases of an acute charac- 
ter are preceded and accompanied, to a certain stage or period, by 
inflammation. Hence, also, according to ancient usage and the 
dictum of alma mater, we are constrained to talk and write as 
though inflammation was the great evil or disease which required 
our services; and thus we coquette with Nature by means of 
sharp-edged tools, while the actual disease steals 1 march on us, 
and we lose the patient in consequence of our want of knowledge. 
Treatment of Inflammation.—Inflammation be .g more or lesa 
active, according to the intensity of the disease f which it is e 
