INFLAMMATION.
Inflammation has generally been considered the great bugbear of the old school, and the scarecrow of the cattle doctor. But what do they know about it? Let us see.
Dr. Thatcher says, "Numerous hypotheses or opinions respecting the true nature and cause of inflammation have for ages been advanced, and for a time sustained; but even at the present day, the various doctrines appear to be considered altogether problematical."
Professor Percival says, "Inflammation consists in an increased action of the arteries, and may be either healthy or unhealthy[4]—a distinction that appears to relate to some peculiarity of the constitution."
We find inflammation described by most old school authors as disease, and they treat it as such. Professor Payne says, "A great majority of all the disorders to which the human frame is liable begin with inflammation, or end in inflammation, or are accompanied by inflammation in some part of their course, or resemble inflammation in their symptoms. Most of the organic changes in different parts of the body recognize inflammation as their cause, or lead to it as their effect. In short, a very large share of the premature extinctions of human life in general is more of less attributable to inflammation."
The term inflammation has long been employed by medical men to denote the existence of an unusual degree of redness, pain, heat, and swelling in any of the textures or organs of which the body is composed. Professor Curtis says, "But as inflammation sometimes exists without the exhibition of any of these symptoms, authors have been obliged to describe it by its causes, in attendant symptoms, and its effects. It is not more strange than true, that, after studying this subject for, as they say, four thousand years, experimenting on it and with it, and defining it, the sum of all their knowledge and definitions is this—inflammation in the animal frame is either a simple or compound action, increased or diminished, or a cessation of all action; it either causes, or is caused, or is accompanied, by all the forms of disease to which the body is subject; it is the only agent of cure in every case in which a cure is effected; it destroys all that die, except by accident or old age; it is both disease itself, and the only antidote to disease; it is the pathological principle which lies at the base of all others; it is that which the profession least of all understand."
Who believes, then, that the science of medicine is based on a sure foundation?
The following selections from the allopathic works will prove what is above stated.
"Pure inflammation is rather an effort of nature than a disease; yet it always implies disease or disturbance, inasmuch as there must be a previous morbid or disturbed state to make such an effort necessary."—Hunter, vol. iv. pp. 293, 294.