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
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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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    fomentations, &c. still encumber this department of the practice of phyi ic and surgery. Fooleries for the most part by which science is clogged and degraded; and from which it cannot escape until man will consent to believe that there is a wisdom in the structure of the body, and the appointment of its laws, superior to his cunning and art in supplying its wants. Having contemplated for the present but a general and brief summary of old opinions on inflammation, and in- tending to make their authors speak for themselves, as fairly and fully as our investigation and understanding of them will permit, we will now proceed in our pur- pose, with more attention to method. It is a complaint urged now more frequently than at a period more remote, that the characters of inflamma- tion are not sufficiently determinate. By this remark is intended to be conveyed an idea of the difficulty oppos- ed to the establishment of certain uniform essential signs which may serve the purposes of correct definition. I think the objection groundless; and that upon this occa- sion as on many other subjects of our science; an affecta- tion of refinement, has superseded a regard to facts. That plain and natural expressions have been removed to make way for, or obscured, by being blended with, arbitrary and capricious conceptions; and the laws of disease, not deduced from nature, but made for her; or rather, to suit the prejudices of writers. No one, I presume, who is informed with a moderate degree of accuracy) on the general laws of the animal economy, can be for a moment at a loss to detect the presence of inflammation, when that condition of parts does exist, provided those parts were accessible to examination. He could be involved in no difficulty as to the existence of inflammation, if its laws were then in operation, or even in ascertaining their previous operation, where its consequences still remained. I have before ventured to compliment the old writers upon inflammation, on Cheir fidelity and accuracy of observation. And I think we shall find by a recurrence to the records of that period, dark and unscientific as it was, that the tribute was not unmerited. In these records we shall fin/i the phenomena of inflammation laid down as they then were,