48 DADD'S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 
cousti 1 ed inflammation. But the school of morbid anatomy, 
by showing that inflammation was a diseased condition of a part, 
e.tirely overthrew the errors and confusion inherent in all such 
nosological systems ; while more recent histological research, by 
exhibiting to us that inflammation is, in truth, a disease of nutri- 
tion, governed by the same laws that determine growth and waste 
of the tissues, has united physiology and pathology into ous 
science, and has removed our present knowledge still further from 
the traditional errors of the past. Now, if it could be shown that 
the group of symptoms formerly called inflammation always in- 
duced the same morbid lesions, former experience might still be 
useful to us. But we contend that this is what clizical observa- 
tion proves to be impossible. Such are the contradictory state- 
ments and the confusion resulting from the ur acquaintance of the 
past race of practitioners with a correct diaguosis and pathology 
that no confidence whatever can be placed in their impressions 
as to what cases were benefited by bleeding. Meclicine is not a 
scientific art, which is dependent for its principles on the study 
of a commentary on the older writers. What they thought and 
what they said are not, and ought not, in a question of this kind, 
to be our guide as to what was or is. On the contrary, it is the 
book of Nature, which is open to all, that we ought to study; and 
why should we read it through the eyes of past sages, when the 
light of science was comparatively feeble and imperfect, instead 
of bringing all our improved modern appliances and advanced 
knowledge to elucidate her meaning ? 
2p Prop.—That inflammation is the same now as it has ever 
been. 
The essential nature of inflammation has been already alluded 
to, viz.: a series of changes in the function of a part, terminating 
in exudation or effusion of lymph. Now, what proof is there 
that any of these necessary changes have, of late years, undergone 
any modification? Ifa healthy animal receives a blow, or any 
other injury, are the resulting phenomena, in these days, in any 
way different from those which took place in the days of YouaT1 
and PercivaL? Were the effects which followed wounds in 
1830 different from those which resulted from similar injuries in 
1860? This has not yet beer shown. Again: if a healthy horse, 
nowadays, be exposed to wet and cold, and be seized with an 
inflammation of the lung or p:eura, is not the lung hepatized ip 
