A treatise on inflammation / By James Macartney.

  • Macartney, James, 1770-1843.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on inflammation / By James Macartney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    females. (Edema is always unfavourable to reparation, and parts once affected with it, are apt to retain some serum in the cellular membrane afterwards, giving them a bloated or tumid appearance. Where the disposition to oedema is general in the body, it is a proof of weak- ness, and often leads to a fatal result, after severe ac- cidents or surgical operations. Vesication is the elevation of the cuticle and rete mucosum, from the surface of the true skin, by an effusion of serum. This effusion may arise from two causes; either the immediate irritation of the skin, as by means of blisters, friction, or high temperature; or by the occurrence of inflammation in constitutions or parts, which are indisposed or incompetent to effect reparation. Hence we observe vesication in diffused inflammation, and in mortification; in which cases, it is conjoined with the effusion of serum into the cellular substance. The serum furnished in such cases is more fluid, than when the effusion is the result of the direct irritation of the skin; and it is often tinged with the colouring matter of the blood. The fluid formed in vesicles, pocks, and pustules on the skin, at first resem- bles that of a common blister, but is changed afterwards, either for an opake white fluid, or genuine pus. Suppuration, or the formation of pus, is one of the most common consequences of inflammation. There is a good deal of confusion, in the opinions of authors, respecting the nature of suppuration; some considering inflammation as necessary to the formation of pus, and hence use the term of suppurative inflam- mation ; others view suppuration as a cause of the abatement, or the cessation of the inflammatory action; E