160 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
make it applicable to the human subject. The term conges¬ 
tion he derives from conger o> to amass, or hyperaemia, vnep on, 
al/LLia (blood)—a superabundance of blood in the capillaries, 
those organs where the arteries and veins anastomose in their 
minute branches. 
Congestion does not always present the same characters. 
It is sometimes positive, at others negative. This has lead 
to the one being called active, or irritative; and the other 
passive, or atonic. 
Active Congestion .—This morbid state is often designated 
by the name of fluxion, turgescence, &c., from the aphorism 
of Hippocrates, “ ubi stimulus, ibi affluxus.^ The epithet 
active, which has been applied to it, is derived from the idea 
that it is determined by a motive force, to discover which 
attention has been directed to the attraction of the blood to 
the part on which the stimulus has acted in the exaggerated 
movements of the heart, and also in the peristaltic contrac¬ 
tion of the vessels. The importance of hyperaemia, as a 
morbid element, deserves that these theories be submitted to 
a critical examination, and physiology will afterwards furnish 
us with data which will lead to the disentanglement of the 
proximate causes of congestion. From the materials existing 
in the blood, the tissues receive the substance of their growth 
and their renewal, and in consequence of this they have a 
great attraction for it. The nutritious energies of an organ 
are in direct proportion to those of its function; it is there¬ 
fore clear that as they consume more nutritive liquid, they 
must also receive more; but as this is in direct proportion, 
it cannot be considered as a cause of hyperaemia. Expe¬ 
rience has, however, demonstrated that those organs whose 
functions are the most active are more exposed to the 
affluxus sanguinis , and that they are partes minoris resist entice. 
Physiological congestion takes place periodically in the 
ovaries, in the uterus, &c. These physiological congestions 
predispose to pathological congestion ; the attraction to which 
they are attributed is not the correct one, if we separate it 
from the influence of the vasco-motor nerves. The section 
of the dorsal nerves of the penis renders the erection of that 
organ impossible, according to Gunther. The heart impels 
the blood forward, the other forces are merely accessory to 
favour its course, or accelerate it locally. Whatever may be 
the rapidity of the systole, and the energy of the contractions 
of the heart and the impulsive force, it cannot produce 
hyperaemia of the capillaries. To maintain the regularity 
of the circulation, it is necessary that the same quantity of 
liquid propelled from the ventricles should come back to the 
auricles. The disgorging of the capillaries, pulmonic and 
