Our own opinions accord with those of Henle, whose theory we shall therefore adopt as the groundwork of any future remarks on this subject.

Even here the causal momentum influences the peripheral nerves, producing either at the spot itself, or through the intervention of the nervous centres, in other sympathetically allied structures, excitation and depression. Or again, the influence affects the nerves within the centres, the impression being conveyed from thence to the corresponding peripheral organs.

The Stasis

The Stasis is not accounted for in the neuropathological theory. It is, indeed, -

3. Not intelligible upon the ground of paralysis and dilatation of the bloodvessels, even though [as we must admit a certain off-flowing to take place to the veins] we may not regard the stasis as an absolute one. For our own part, we hold stasis to be dependent upon the following momenta:

(a.) The cohering, crowding, and impaction of the blood-disks within the capillaries, the blood-plasma being partly withdrawn into the veins.

(b.) The thickening of the plasma, and its saturation with fibrin and albumen, owing to the transuding of blood-serum through the distended and thinned bloodvessel walls.

(c.) The accumulation of the colorless globules - that is, nucleus and cell-formations - along with the blood-corpuscles, their conglutination, and the delicate transparent fibrinous coagula collaterally developed. This is, perhaps, the most important stage in the inflammatory process, as at once illustrating the stasis itself, and embracing the plastic processes in which the blood engages when arrived at this point. A line of distinction is thus drawn between the inflammatory process, and a simple process of exudation. The form-elements adverted to are not merely washed together within the range of the stasis; they are new creations out of the blood so arrested, which at the same time undergoes other remarkable changes. Thus it is of a dark red, with a tile-colored shade, contains red flocculent particles of cruor, visible to the naked eye, teems with the aforesaid elementary bodies, and with coagula, most of which latter have incorporated a number of the former, as well as of dark-colored flattened blood-corpuscles. The accumulation as well as the general importance of those (new) elements, for the inflammatory process, and especially the stasis, have been recognized by Addison and others.

The momentous question, as to the cause of the said formative process of blood in the condition of stasis, will be answered, so far as it is possible, in the sequel.

4. Exudation

The thinning and permeability of the walls of bloodvessels, produced by their distension, must be regarded as the basis of this phenomenon, even in the instance of a condensed plasma; perhaps, additionally, the effort at equalization betwixt the latter and any thinner blood-serum before exuded.

A question of peculiar interest here suggests itself, namely: wherefore in the inflammation of membranous expansions does exudation always take place upon their surface, and into the cavities which they invest, whilst the effusion beneath is limited to the infiltration of the implicated parenchyma, or of the subjacent areolar tissue - with, for the most part, an inconsiderable amount of plastic serum? This applies not only to mucous and serous membranes, but even to other more delicate hollow bodies - for example, follicles. The problem, like that of Johannes Mul-ler, as to natural secretions affecting the free surfaces, is only to be solved upon the ground of less resistance being offered in this direction. The said infiltration of parenchymata and of contiguous textures, is co-significant with the oedema that surrounds patches of inflammation.

To an indefinite distance beyond the range of true inflammation, and lessening in intensity as the distance increases, congestion takes place, and with it the effusion of serum. And the serum becomes, in like manner, poorer in plastic substances towards its periphery. Such is inflammatory oedema; oedema encompassing the range of inflammation.

The accompaniments of pain, redness, heat, swelling, are explicable as follows:

Pain is determined -

1. In external injuries, as wounds, burns, cauterization, either by the immediate action of the cause of the inflammation upon the peripheral nerves, or else by reflection from the central organs. In no instance is it determined by the inflammation itself.

2. By the pressure and tension which the dilated and overladen vessels, and the effused fluid exercise upon the nerves, true inflammatory pain.

3. Finally, pain of a certain degree, or rather of particular kinds, is to be referred to augmented temperature in an inflamed part. In the absence of increased warmth, which characterizes certain inflammations, pain is generally absent, also.

The redness is a consequence of the overloading of the dilated capillaries with blood-corpuscles; it is therefore to be designated as the redness of injection. A new creation of bloodvessels does not, as was once supposed, ever accompany the inflammatory process itself, and cannot, therefore, be taken into account here.

The redness is also, in some measure, due to the blood thrown out during the stage of congestion and stasis.

In some inflammations, one great source of the redness is the drenching of the tissues with dissolved blood-pigment, - redness of imbibition.

In form, the redness of injection varies in different textures, according to the order in which their capillaries are disposed. Take for example the linear redness of injection in inflamed fibrous structures. In the most vascular structures, however, the naked eye is no longer cognizant of aught but a uniform red tint.

Lastly, the redness is subject to many gradations of color, being deeper in proportion as the organ is vascular, and the congestion intense. Much depends, moreover, upon the constitution of the blood, and more especially of its red pigment; take, for instance, the copper-redness of the syphilitic, the violet hue of the typhous stasis. The elevated, temperature has its source partly in the formative processes, in which blood in the condition of stasis becomes engaged, but for the most part in the excitation produced upon the sensitive nerves.

The swelling is dependent -

(a.) Upon dilatation and repletion of the capillaries;

(6.) More especially upon exudation of blood-serum and plasma;

(c.) Upon concurrent hemorrhagic effusion (extravasation).

The two latter conditions give rise, in like manner, to the loose, lace-rable condition of inflamed textures.

After this description of the inflammatory process, and this interpretation of its phenomena, we should proceed to investigate the so-called issues of inflammation. These, however, resolution excepted, cannot be satisfactorily considered without an insight into the various products of inflammation, nor these products themselves be rendered intelligible but by a knowledge of the manifold varieties and anomalies of the process, and of its relation to the blood-crasis.