Progress of Rational Pathology. 225 



e. Arteries. — Their redness from imbibition is to be distin- 

 guished from that from inflammation, by this, that it is chiefly 

 confined to the inner coat (the epithelium), and ceases entire- 

 ly in the middle one. Levy observed inflammation and its 

 effects in the umbilical artery in 14 out of 15 cases of new- 

 born children who died of tenesmus. Scholler remarked a 

 case of inflammation of the umbilical artery without trismus. 



f. Veins. — The progress of inflammation in veins otherwise 

 sound, is not (according to Pirogoff and Reumert) so rapid, as 

 is commonly supposed : Stannius thinks it doubtful whe- 

 ther from constitutional causes apart from local irritation, 

 inflammation of individual branches of veins can develop itself. 

 Hetherschij found all the veins of the lower half of the body 

 after puerperal fever filled with a soft, yellowish-red, dry, 

 pus-like mass mixed with normal blood : he believes that this 

 coagulum was not the product of the inflamed coats of the 

 veins, but only deposited in them. Stannius has observed 

 the complete re-absorption of obliterated veins along with a 

 thrombus, (in which also small vessels were observable.) Of 

 cases of inflammation of particular veins, there have been 

 observed, phlebitis of the sinuses of the dura-mater in conse- 

 quence of purulent otorrhoea, and phlebitis of the venaportae. 



g. Brain and its membranes. — Kellie and Abercrombie 

 think that, from the slight compressibility of the brain and 

 the fixedness of the cerebral parietes, no universal increase or 

 diminution of quantity in the contents of its blood-vessels 

 can take place, and therefore, that in cerebral congestions 

 there can only be an alteration in the proportions of arterial 

 and venous blood. To this Cohen opposes the facts of the 

 flattening of the convolutions, in cases of water in the ventri- 

 cles, and of the brain being overfilled with blood, and reminds 

 us that in many cases the over-compressed brain, when once 

 extracted, cannot be made to return within the cranium. 

 Yet he admits, that positive overfilling and real compression 

 of the brain by blood or serum are not so often indicated 



