A view of the prevailing theories of inflammation : submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost, and the regents of the University of Maryland / by Philip R. Edelen, of St. Mary's County, Maryland ; honorary member of the Baltimore Medical Society.
- Edelen, Philip R.
- Date:
- 1815
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A view of the prevailing theories of inflammation : submitted to the consideration of the Honourable Robert Smith, provost, and the regents of the University of Maryland / by Philip R. Edelen, of St. Mary's County, Maryland ; honorary member of the Baltimore Medical Society. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
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![Dr. Brown's pathology of inflammation, like his doc- trine of general disease, is at first view imposing, because apparently simple. Those doctrines have been stamped with the approbation, by indulging the indolence of man- kind. The favouritism thus obtained, has perhaps been enlarged and confirmed by the rancour which his grow- ing fame, dissolute life, and severity towards the opinions of others elicited from his competitors. Dr. Brown divided diseases into two genera. He has given inflammation a similar classification. His general principles possessed but a narrow footing, and the harmony of parts must be strictly preserved, or the whole fabric must tumble. Inflammation with him is sthenic or asthenic. The vessels in the first state act with uncommon energy, and send on their blood rapidly; in the second, the vessels are preternaturally feeble, and the blood moves tardily. It is only necessary to observe of this doctrine, that its premises are irrational.' Inflammation is but one effect, and here are two causes diametrically opposite. If increased action constitutes inflammation, diminished action is its negative, or the absence of inflammation. If diminished action simply or of itself could cause in- flammation, (which is inverting the order of positive and negative) then increased action ought to cure it; and the higher it rose, the farther distant it should become from the diseased condition. The laws of the human body are too simple and uniform for us to think of inventing a scale by which these unnatural gradations (or degrees] ©f action are to be happily coaptated. I shall notice some of the absurdities (as I conceive) of those doctrines in another place. I ought perhaps, to ask pardon for having promised to examine Dr. Darwin's theory of inflammation. It is so inextricably implicated in the mazes of metaphysical sub- tlety, that I really cannot apprehend it. In Zoonomia, page 9w6, Dr. Darwin remarks, that when any part is excited into such violent motion that a quantity of painful or pleasurable sensation is produced, it frequently happens, but not always, that new motions of the affected organ are generated, in consequence of the](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21117639_0035.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
