698 
ME  J.  LISTEE  ON  THE  EAELY  STAGES  OF  ENFLA^FMATIOX. 
duced  by  dilatation  of  the  arteries  and  concomitant  obstruction  in  the  capillaries;  but 
seems  naturally  accounted  for  on  the  hypothesis  that  the  walls  of  the  vessels,  like  other 
tissues,  lose,  for  the  time,  in  inflammation,  their  "vital  properties,  and,  acquiring  an 
attraction  for  the  flbrine  like  that  exercised  by  ordinary  solids,  pennit  it  to  pass  "with- 
out opposition  through  their  porous  parietes. 
It  may  be  well  to  present  a brief  summary  of  the  principal  results  anived  at  in  the 
present  section. 
It  appears  that  the  various  physical  and  chemical  agents  which,  when  operating 
powerfully,  extinguish  the  life  of  the  constituents  of  the  animal  body,  produce  by  a 
somewhat  gentler  action  a condition  bordering  upon  loss  of  "vitality,  but  quite  distinct 
from  it,  in  which  the  tissues  are,  for  the  time  being,  incapacitated  for  discharging  then- 
wonted  offices,  though  retaining  the  faculty  of  returning  afterwards,  by  "virtue  of  their 
o"wn  inherent  powers,  to  their  former  state  of  activity,  provided  the  irritation  have  not 
been  too  severe  or  protracted.  This  suspension  of  function  or  temporary  abolition  of  \ital 
energy  is  the  primary  lesion  in  inflammatory  congestion ; the  blood  in  the  "vicinity  of 
the  disabled  tissues  assuming  the  same  characters  as  when  in  contact  -with  ordinary  sohd 
matter,  and  thus  becoming  unfit  for  transmission  through  the  vessels ; while  the  return 
of  the  li"ving  solids  to  their  usual  active  state  is  accompanied  by  a restoration  of  the  %ital 
fluid  to  the  healthy  characters  which  adapt  it  for  circulation. 
CONCLUSION. 
It  remains  to  glance  at  the  application  of  the  principles  established  in  the  preceding 
pages  to  human  pathology. 
The  post  mortem  appearance  which  is  universally  admitted  to  indicate  that  the  early 
stages  of  inflammation  have  occurred  during  life,  is  intense  redness,  depending  essentially 
not  upon  peculiar  distension  of  the  vessels  "with  blood,  but  upon  abnormal  accumulation 
of  the  red  corpuscles  in  their  minutest  ramifications.  A beautiful  example  of  tliis  con- 
dition, developed  idiopathically,  was  presented  by  the  case  of  incipient  meningitis  men- 
tioned in  the  Introduction,  in  which  the  vessels  of  an  aflected  spot  of  pia  mater  were 
filled  with  a crimson  mass  of  confusedly  compacted  corpuscles,  exactly  as  in  an  area  of 
the  frog’s  web  to  which  mustard  has  been  applied.  The  derangement  of  the  "vital  fluid 
in  the  human  subject  being  thus  closely  parallel  to  that  which  we  have  studied  in  the 
batrachian  reptile,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  in  the  former,  as  in  the  latter,  the  Ihing 
solids  are  in  a state  of  more  or  less  complete  suspension  of  functional  acthity  during 
inflammatory  congestion.  This  "view  is  supported  by  the  effusion  of  liquor  sanguinis  in 
its  integrity  in  the  more  advanced  stages  of  the  disease  in  man,  and  by  the  speedy  coagu- 
lation of  flbrine  upon  inflamed  serous  surfaces,  or  in  the  interior  of  vessels  affected  with 
arteritis  or  phlebitis.  For  these  circumstances,  as  has  been  before  remarked,  appear  to 
indicate  that  the  tissues  are  for  the  time  being  reduced  still  more  towards  the  condition 
of  ordinary  solid  matter.  These  arguments,  derived  from  the  appearances  of  the  blood, 
