Essay on inflammation / [John Hodgson].

  • Hodgson, John
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on inflammation / [John Hodgson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nervous energy; but whatever be its explanation, it is pretty constant and uniform in its appearance, though, when measured by the thermometer, as was shown by Mr Hunter, by no means commensurate with the feelings of the patient. The pain in inflammation has been variously ac¬ counted for : It has been attributed to the sudden pressure of the nerves from swelling and distension ; also to an increase of sensibility produced by the in¬ creased vitality said to belong to an inflamed part, which now is painfully affected by impressions before natural and grateful. Pain, however, is not a neces¬ sary attendant on swelling and distension, and in¬ creased sensibility merely does not satisfactorily ac¬ count for the different kinds of pain experienced in different varieties of this affection, or in the different textures of the body subject to its influence. It may probably be owing in part to the nerves participating in the general derangement, and in part also to the greater quantity of arterial blood circulating in the diseased organ; for the pain is generally increased by each contraction of the left ventricle of the heart, and when, from any cause, the blood circulating in the body is chiefly venous, there is little or no sensi¬ bility to pain. The swelling can be explained in a more satisfac¬ tory manner. It is dependent partly upon the un¬ natural distension of the blood-vessels, partly upon the effusion of lymph and serum into the cells of the surrounding cellular membrane, and partly also up-
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