Report on the present state of knowledge of the nature of inflammation / by T. Wharton Jones.

  • Jones, Thomas Wharton, 1808-1891.
Date:
[1844]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the present state of knowledge of the nature of inflammation / by T. Wharton Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    IG in the capillaries. The natural inference from this is that the influence nliich keeps down the tendency of the red cor|)uscles to aggregate is communicjited to them by the nerves accompanying the small vessels, arteries as well a.s capillaries, as the blood passes through. § 75. When then the nervous influence is withdrawn from the small arterie.s, and they have in consequence become relaxed and dilated, and when any ner- vous influence which may naturally be discharged on the capillaries is from the same cause withdrawn, the blood slowly flows through the dilated small arteries into the capillaries as into an indifferent cavity and in the same condition as re- gards tendency of the red corpuscles to aggregate as blood is when newly drawn from the body, or when extravasated, as well as with the same change in appear- ance. H 5-15-17-60-65. § 76. Aggregation of the red corpuscles accordingly takes place, some at the same time adhering to the walls of the vessels. This latter phenomenon is to be attributed in like manner to the suspension of nervous influence from the small vessels. For it is to be observed that the circumstance of the red corpuscles keeping together in the axis of the stream, and aloof from the walls of the vessels in tlie natural state of the circulation may be accounted for with. Mr. Martyn Roberts* by the nervous influence, annulling the attraction of adhesion, or causing a repulsion between the red corpuscles and walls of the vessels at the same time that it does so among the red corpuscles themselves. The suspension of the re- pulsion between the red corpuscles and walls of the vessels also allows the entrance of red corpuscles in numbers, into the very small vessels into which they before occasionally, and few in number only entered. 10.) § 77. The retarded flow of blood which precedes the stagnation, and which, ac- cording to Henle, is wholly the physical effect of the dilatation of the paralysed vessels, can be admitted to be so in part only, being greater than the dilatation appears physically to account for. The other cause appears, from what has been above said, to be the commencing attraction among, and agglomeration of the red corpuscles, as also the commencing attraction between them and the walls of vessels. By the dilatation of the vessels, retardation of the flow of blood as a whole, as a fluid is determined; the additional retardation by the commencing at- traction, affects the corpuscles only, hence their accumulation in increased quantity while the plasma passes on.f . , . , ... § 78. As the retardation of the flow of blood accompanying relaxation and dila- tation of the vessels is not alone owing to that dilatation, so on the other hand, the accelerated flow of blood which accompanies constriction of the vessels is not alone owing to that constriction, but in part to diminished attraction, or actual repulsion. The increased discharge of nervous influence which determines the contraction of the walls of the vessels, at the same time calls forth diminished attraction or actual repulsion between the walls of the vessels and the red corpuscles, as well as among the red corpuscles themselves. .• i • i i § 79. The view of the process leading to inflammatory congestion which has now been laid before the reader, explains why when, in inflammatory fever, the plasma of the blood in general is much inspissated, and the tendency of Uie red corpuscles to aggregate when the blood is withdrawn from the body, consequently increased, stagnation does not occur in any set of capillaries in which the flow of blood may be retarded. The nervous influence which continues sti 1 to be ex- pended on the small arteries of the part, prevents it by keeping doivn the tendency of the red corpuscles to aggregate; mere inspissation of the plasma as above shown not being the essential, but merely a promoting condition for the aggregation of tlip r0(l corpusclGs. • . S 80. But of course if in a case in which the plasma is much inspissated, irrita- tion be applied, and relaxation or paralysis and dilatation of the small vessels o • On the Analogy between the Phenomena of the Flectric and Nervous Influences; In the London, Edlnburch, and Dublin Philosophic,il Miigar.ine for July, 1041. . . u i t Emmert observed that when the crural vein of the frog was tied, the blood, which was in co - sequence stagnated in the capillaries, presented an equal proportion of plasma and corpuscles.