Dr. J. Burdon Sanderson's reports of an experimental study of infective inflammations.

  • Burdon-Sanderson, John Scott, 1828-1905.
Date:
[1875]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. J. Burdon Sanderson's reports of an experimental study of infective inflammations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    No. 2.—Dr. J. Burdon Sanderson’s Reports of an experimental study of Infective Inflammations. A.—Report of 1872. Introduction. Ait. No. 2. On Infective Inflammations, by Dr. Burdon Sanderson. When a living tissue is injured mechanically or chemically without inflammation is being destroyed, it becomes the seat of a succession of changes which are j!1® reaction of a the products of the disorder of the vital functions of the injured parts, against an These changes collectively receive the name Inflammation. The term in-'ury- comprehends, therefore, an assemblage of phenomena, held in relation with each other by the circumstance that they are all effects of the same injurious agency, and that they all form parts of one process, of which the various stages follow each other in more or less orderly succession. It is not needful, in introducing the present inquiry, to describe the process of inflammation, for the question which concerns us has relation rather with the agency by which the phenomena are produced than with the manifestations of its action. It will be sufficient to remind the reader that the phenomena are of two kinds—those which depend on changes in the structural elements of the tissues, and those which have their seat in the blood-vessels ; and that the latter, again, admit of a very obvious division, into those which concern the blood-vessels as muscular tubes (the contractile elements of which are under the immediate control of the vaso-motor nervous system), and those which relate to their function as mere conduits for the conveyance and distribution of blood. If we compare these two orders of phenomena (the vascular and the 0f the lw0 kimls textural effects of injury) with reference to their importance as cha- of local changes racteristics of the process of inflammation, we shall assign the first place matin'cofite to the former, leaving the latter in subordinate and consequential (textural and relation to it; for although we know that a living part cannot be injured formcrare^ub- without the elements of its tissue undergoing those germinative °ubseauentto changes of which the production and multiplication of young cells is the latter! ° Hie result, yet observation teaches us that this cell germination is never the first link in the chain of effects of which the reaction of a livin'*' tissue against an injury consists. The first local effect which an injury produces in a living part is vascular ; it manifests itself as above indicated in two directions simul- taneously. On the one hand, the state of contraction (or tonus) of the smallest arteries is altered or modified within and around the seat of /’jury in such a way as to determine increased supply of blood to the injured part ; on the other, the walls of the capillaries undergo imper- fectly understood changes, by virtue of which the liquor “sanguinis (plasma) and corpuscles sweat or squeeze out into the lymphatic spaces in which the elements of the tissues lie. This sweating out of the liquor sanguinis we call exudation, using the T] , f . , term in its original and etymological sense as distinguished from that tionis thelSk which has been more recently given to it. Shortly after the introduction ol the microscope as an instrument of pathological research, the micro- textural changes, scopical study of the cellular products of inflammation so completely engrossed attention that by many writers the process or injury by which