In severe inflammation, the nervous system, the heart, and the whole circulating system, are in volved, and constitute inflammatory fever; some times the quickened pulse precedes the appearance of the inflammation, while at other times it follows.
In the former, the increased circulation, from what ever cause, so excites the nerves and arteries, that they are incapable of returning to their wonted quiescence, and the inflammation may be either partial or general, according as any part of the Jody is feebler than another. In the latter, the nervous system, together with the heart and arte ries, are excited by the diseased action of the nerves of the part affected being transmitted along the nerves to the brain and heart. Our narrow limits will not permit us to examine the humoral theories of Hippocrates, Galen and Boerhaave; the alchemi cal theory of Paracelsus; the spasmodic theory of Hoffman, Staahl, and Cullen; the excitability and excitement of Brown; the irritation, sensation, vo lition, and association of Darwin; the materia vita: conservata, chord internuncix, and materia vita diffusa of John Hunter; the debility of the capil laries followed by increased action of the larger vessels, or an inequality in the distribution of the blood, according to Vacca Berlinghieri of Pisa, Drs. Lubboch, Allen, W. ,Phillip, and Hastings; the increased action of the vessels in moderate de grees of inflammation according to Drs. Thomson, Parry, and James. For further information the reader is referred to the article MEDICINE; to the Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 60., and to Lizars's.Inatonrical Plates, part 9, Physiological and Pathological Observations. The great subject of dispute in these theories, is, whether obstruction to the circulation of the blood actually exists in in flammation. That this is the case in well formed inflammation there cannot be the least doubt: but in mild cases, especially erysipelas, there appears no ground whatever for such an obstruction.
Inflammation has been divided in a variety of ways by Hunter, Kirkland, Pearson, C. Smith, Pinel, Bichat, Burns, Thomson, and James. From
these great authorities, a very simple arrangement may be formed; for inflammation, whether acute, sub-acute, chronic, phlegmonous or erysipelatous, must be identically the same. Phlegmon and ery sipelas are only varieties of inflammation, while the acute and chronic are merely different stages of it. The adhesive, suppurative, ulcerative and gan grenous, are its terminations. Healthy inflamma tion comes under phlegmon; unhealthy, under phlegmon, erysipelas, and chronic; specific, which embraces scrofula, syphilis, cancer and fungus hxmatodes, evidently involves two diseases in each of these peculiar constitutions; thus inflammation occurring in either the scrofulous, or syphilitic constitution, may be either phlegmonous or erysi pelatous, acute or chronic.
Acute inflammation, whether phlegmonous or erysipelatous, is mild or violent according to a variety of circumstances. In a healthy, temperate constitution, with a placid mind, and residing in a salubrious situation and temperature, it is natural to expect the attack will be mild, and more likely phlegmonous than erysipelatous; on the contrary, in a diseased, debauched constitution, with a fret ful unhappy mind, and living in a confined filthy abode, we have every reason to expect the attack will be violent, and more probably erysipelatous than phlegmonous. \Ve find, however, phlegmo nous and erysipelatous inflammation occurring oc casionally in both or these habits. Chronic fre quently supervenes after the acute, as for instance, in opthalmia, and in advanced life is occasionally an idiopathic disease. It is ascertained that, ac cording as the part affected is more or less vascular, the progress of the inflammation is more or less fa vourable. The phenomena of general inflammation are evidenced in acute, or chronic, whether phleg monous or erysipelatous; and when these symptoms are confined to a small space they arc said to be local, and when they extend to, or involve the nervous and circulating systems, the affection becomes general, or constitutes inflammatory fever.