A treatise on symptomatic fevers ; including inflammations, hemorrhagies, and mucous discharges / by A. P. Wilson Philip.

  • Philip, Alexander Philip Wilson, 1770-1847.
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on symptomatic fevers ; including inflammations, hemorrhagies, and mucous discharges / by A. P. Wilson Philip. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    tem ; we observe that, as the inflammation yields, the gene- ral excitement subsides, and that when the inflammation is removed, the whole system is left in a state of greater debility than before the disease. In short, inflammation seems to consist in the debility of the capillaries followed by an increased action of the larger vessels, and is terminated as soon as the capillaries are so far excited, and the large arteries so far weakened, by the preter- natural action of the latter, chat the power of the capillaries is in due proportion to the vis a tergo. The symptoms of inflammation, we have seen, are red- ness, swelling, increased temperature and pain. It appears from what was said above, that it is so difficult to account for the increased redness of an inflamed part by the popular doctrine, that this symptom alone seems sufficient to invalidate it. According to the opinion we have just been considering, the increased redness is a consequence of inflam- mation, too evident to require any comment. We shall pre- sently have occasion to consider why the redness is of the florid kind, and assumes a purplish hue, where there is a tendency to gangrene. To account for the swelling of an inflamed part by the commonly received hypothesis, it is asserted that inflammation is always accompanied by effusion into the cellular substance; for it is impossible even to conceive how a more vigorous ac- tion of the vessels can occasion their general dilatation. Of this mode of explaining the swelling, it may, in the first place, be observed, that it has never been shown that any de- gree of effusion necessarily attends inflammation ; but admit- ting that it does, the swelling should be white as in anasarca, not red, for we certainly know that there is no effusion of red blood. Besides, on examining an inflamed part through the microscope by transmitted light, it is at once evident that its increased size is, at least in great part, occasioned by ves- sels turgid with red blood. Nay, on the common hypothesis, it is even difficult, as Dr. Fowler confesses *, to account for the pain of an in- flamed part, which is doubtless the consequence ot the pre- ternatural distention of the capillaries, and which is often pulsatory corresponding with the pulsation of the larger ar- Page 24.