5O LADD’S VETERINARY MEDICINE AND SURGERY 
of inflan.mation, draw an increased amount of blood toward the 
part? She does so, it scems to us, in obedience to one of her 
wisest laws, but one which has been too much ignored by medical 
practitioners. It must be obvious, however, that an inflamma- 
tion having occurred, the great work now to be accomplished ia 
the removal of the exudation—to eliminate from the injured part 
either directly by discharge externally, or by passage into thr 
blood, to be finally excreted through the emuncturies. In all 
such cases, the blood is not sent or determined, but drawn to the 
part, in consequence of the increased actions going on in them; 
in short, it is absolutely imperative that the part in which these 
changes go on should receive more blood than in health. But, 
hitherto, medical practitioners have supposed that this phenome- 
non is injurious, and ought to be checked by blood-letting and 
antiphlogistics. The rapid flow of blood, which is so necessary, 
they have sought to diminish, and the increased amount in the 
neighborhood of the part which is 30 essential for the restoration 
to health, it has been their object to destroy. In doing so, we 
argue they act in opposition to sound theory, and, as we shal. 
afterward attempt to show, good practice, also. 
The inconsistency of the theraupeutical rules on this head will 
become more manifest when we remember that it is necessary, in 
the opinion of many medical practitioners, not only to weaken 
the pulse when it is strong, but to strengthen it when it has been 
made weak. Now, although it is obviously good practice to sup- 
port the strength when the calls upon the nutritive functions 
have exhausted the economy, it is injurious to diminish, by blood- 
letting, the nutritive processes themselves, when they are busily 
engaged in operating on the exudation and eliminating the mor- 
bid products. In short, the phenomena of fever and excitability 
accumpanying inflammation have been wrongly interpreted, and 
danger is to be apprehended from them, not directly, but from 
the subsequent exhaustion which all great exertions of the animal 
economy produce. In themselves, these exertions are sanatite, 
and indicate the struggle which the economy is engaged in when 
attempting to get rid of the diseased processes ; and whenever we 
lessen the vital powers at such a critical juncture, we diminisb 
the chances of that struggle terminating favorably. This propo 
sition seems to be universally admitted in the case of essential 
fevers, and its truth ought to be accepted equally in inflammat’on 
